The Born Queen

1 Occupied

Leoff closed his eyes and let the form build in the ensemble of his mind. The first bass line began, a male voice, rising and falling: the roots in the soil, the long slow dreams of trees. Then, after a few measures, a second line entered as deep in pitch but in uneasy harmony with the first: leaves rotting into soil, bones decaying into dust, and in the lowest registers the meandering of rivers and weathering of mountains.

Now the middle voice came in: Birth and growth, joy and tragedy, suffering and learning met with forgetting, the loss of senses, discorportation, disintegration…

It wasn’t until Joven, the gardener, started shouting that Leoff understood that someone had been pounding on the outside door, probably for some time. His first reaction was impatience, but then he recalled that Joven rarely got excited and never to the point of shouting.

He sighed and set down the quill. He was at a standstill anyway. He had the form; the instruments were his problem.

When he answered the door, Joven proved to be more than excited; he seemed to be on the verge of panic.

“What is it, fralet?” Leoff asked. “Come in, have some wine.”

“It’s the enemy, Cavaor,” Joven said. “He’s here.”

“The enemy?”

“Hansa. They’ve besieged Haundwarpen, and about a hundred of them just rode into the estate. The duke didn’t leave many men here to guard it; I think they surrendered.”

“I don’t understand,” Leoff said. “I thought Hansa was beaten at Poelscild.”

“Auy. But they say Queen Anne is dead, and without her sainted power to hold them back, they’ve taken Poelscild and crossed the canal. All of Newland is in their grasp.”

“The queen is dead? Queen Anne?”

“Murdered, they say.”

“That’s terrible news,” Leoff said. He hadn’t known Anne very well, but he owed her mother, Muriele, a lot. She had lost all but one of her children now. He couldn’t imagine how she must be feeling. Nor did he want to learn, at least not by direct experience.

“Where are Areana and Mery?” he asked, trying to keep calm.

“Lys went to find them. She thinks they’re in the garden.”

Leoff nodded and took up his cane. “Get them to the cottage and stay there with them, please.” “Yes, Cavaor,” the old fellow said, and sprinted off as fast as he could on his aged legs.

Leoff pushed himself up and went out to stand on the stoop. Dogs were barking everywhere, but other than that it seemed a normal day, pleasant even.

He didn’t have to wait long. Within a bell, a knight with a red-plumed helm came riding through the gate, followed by ten horsemen and about twice that number on foot.

The knight turned his head this way and that and, apparently satisfied he hadn’t ridden into a trap, doffed the headgear, discovering an oval-faced man of twenty-something years with auburn hair and a lighter red mustache.

“I hait Sir Ilzereik af Aldamarka,” he said in accented but good king’s tongue. “I declare this house and its grounds spoils of war in the name of Marcomir, king of Hansa.”

“I hait Leovigild Ackenzal,” he replied. “I’m a guest here, by leave of Duke Artwair Dare.”

“You live alone, Fralet Ackenzal?”

“No.”

“Bring the others, then.”

“I can’t do that until I have your word they will be well treated.”

“Why do you think you’re in a position to bargain?” Ilzereik asked. “Who are you protecting? Your wife and daughters, perhaps? I could find them easily enough and do whatever I liked with them. But I am a knight of Hansa, not some thrall of your dead witch-queen. You need not beg me to behave properly in the eyes of the saints.”

“I’m not begging,” Leoff said. He’d been afraid of men like this once. He wasn’t anymore, not for himself, anyway.

“Your house is mine,” the knight said. “My men will sleep in the yard. You and whoever else is here will see to our needs. Do that and no harm will come to you. Is that understood?”

“It’s understood,” Leoff said. “If that is your word as a knight of Hansa.”

“It is,” the knight said. “Now, my man Aizmeki will go with you to find the others.”

Aizmeki wasn’t a big man, but he looked to be made of muscle and scars and not much else. He followed Leoff wordlessly out to the garden and the little cabin there.

Areana rushed out and hugged him. Mery just peered at the warrior as if he were some strange insect and took Leoff’s hand in her little cold one.

The knight’s word proved good, at least for that afternoon. Although many of the Hansan warriors leered openly at Areana and some at Mery, which was disgusting, none dared do more than make a few probably crude comments in their own language, and they returned to the house in peace.

He found Ilzereik looking through his music.

“Who wrote this?” he asked.

“I did.”

“You did?” The knight peered at him a little more intently. “You’re a composer?”

“I am.”

“Ackenzal,” the knight mused. “I don’t recall the name.”

“You know music?”

“I studied a little. My father thought I should, so he kept an instructor in our hall and sent me each autumn to study at the Liuthgildrohsn.”

“Ah. With Mestro Evensun.”

A little smile played on the knight’s face. “You know the mestro?”

“I do. He lectured at the college when I was apprenticed to Mestro DaPeica.”

The smile broadened. “I have a book of DaPeica’s short works for hammarharp.”

Leoff nodded.

“Well,” the knight said, gesturing toward the hammarharp, “play me something of yours.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” Leoff said.

“You shouldn’t fear my criticism,” the Hansan said. “I’m not a snob. The great composers and the small, I like them all.”

“That isn’t it,” Leoff said, holding up his hands.

“Schithundes,” the man swore. “What happened?”

“He was tortured,” Areana interrupted in a brittle voice. “He’s suffered much.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the knight said. “And I understand you, Frauja Ackenzal. Your husband will not suffer at my hands, not if you all behave.”

“I can play for you,” Mery said softly. “Areana can sing.”

“Really?” Ilzereik looked pleased. “I would like that, barnila.”

Leoff squeezed Mery’s hand. “Play the Poelen Suite,” Leoff said. “I think he’ll like that. And play it as written, Mery. Do you understand?”

She nodded and went to sit at the instrument. Areana went hesitantly to join her.

Mery put her fingers on the keys and struck down. The chord rang a little wrong, and Leoff bit his lip and prayed to the saints that she could hold back the darkness in her.

But the second chord was pure, and from there everything proceeded smoothly. Areana’s voice was lovely, as always, and when they finished, the knight applauded.

“I never expected to find such wonderful accommodations,” he said. “Sir, let’s have some wine. You and I will talk, fralet. For quite some time now I’ve been working a little here and there at a sort of musical telling of the Shiyikunisliuth, an epic about the tribe my family arose from. If I could play you a little of it, perhaps you might have some ideas of how I might go about fleshing it out.”

And so their first night under occupation passed if not pleasantly, at least without disaster. When they took to their beds that night on the floor in the kitchen, Leoff prayed that the Hansan continued to be entertained enough by them to keep his men in check.

He was breathing a little more freely three days later. Some of the men, notably a stout fellow they called Haukun, continued their leering, but Ilzereik seemed to have them under control.

On the third afternoon, he was pretending to work on the knight’s “epic” but instead was going back over the third section of the work he was beginning to think of as a kind of requiem; he heard the door burst open and Areana shout. He tried to get up too fast, toppled his stool, and fell. He grabbed his cane and pushed himself up to find himself facing the point of a sword held by a man with closely cropped sandy hair and a missing ear. He didn’t know the fellow’s name, but it was one of Ilzereik’s men. “Easy, now,” the man said. “Qimeth jus hiri.” He jerked his head toward the common room.

Leoff went with the sword at his back. Black clouds boiled in his peripheral vision.

Haukun and three other men were there, along with Areana and Mery.

“There we go,” Haukun said. “Every one here now.”

“What is this?” Leoff said, feeling stones in his gut. “Sir Ilzereik—”

“He is gone,” Haukun said bluntly. “Called to siege. He comined back not too soon. I in charge this place now.”

“He won’t be pleased if you hurt us.”

“I care little for his pleasing,” the soldier said. “Stingy man, not understanding how to keep his men happy, you know? Sit in here every night while pretty girls make pretty music.” He pushed Mery toward the hammarharp. “You play, jah? And this one will sing. Maybe not hurt you too much. Maybe women even like it.”

Areana slapped him hard. “If you touch Mery—” But Haukun cut her off with a fist to the chin. Areana slammed against the wall and slid down, stunned, crying but making no sound.

Leoff lunged and swung his cane at the man, but something hit him hard on the back of the head, and for a while he couldn’t focus beyond that.

When he could, he realized that Mery was playing. He looked up, feeling nauseated, and saw that Haukun had forced Areana to her feet and had her pressed against the wall. Her dress had been pushed up.

“Sing,” he said, starting to take down his breeches.

Areana slitted her eyes, and the purest malice Leoff had ever seen in her peered from there. And then she did sing, and Leoff realized what Mery was playing.

“Remember,” he called hoarsely. “Remember, for saints’ sake.”

Then they were past the point of no return, and the song took them all to its end.

When it was over, Areana was huddled in a corner and Leoff couldn’t get up; every time he tried to move, his stomach started heaving again. It had been worse this time, harder to sing the counterpoint that had preserved their lives at Lord Respell’s castle.

Mery looked no worse for wear, though. She hopped down from her stool and sat with him, stroking his neck.

Haukun and the others, of course, hadn’t been so fortunate. Only Haukun was still alive, probably because he had been near enough to Areana to hear her countercant. He wasn’t well, though. He was sprawled on the floor, twitching, whining with each breath like a sick old dog.

Still trying to rise, he saw Areana come unsteadily to her feet and leave the room. She returned a moment later with a kitchen knife.

“Look away, Mery,” she said.

“Go in my study,” Leoff told the girl. “Get everything we’ve been working on. Do you understand? Then go get your thaurnharp. Don’t leave the house.”

When he could walk again, Leoff peered out the front door. He didn’t see anyone. Then he went back to look at the bodies. Areana had cleaned up the blood from Haukun, and the others had died without a mark on them.

“What now?” Areana said.

He stepped to embrace her, but she flinched back, and he stopped, feeling a lump in his throat. He didn’t feel like much of a man.

“I think we have to leave,” he said. “If more soldiers come, the same thing will happen. If Ilzereik returns, he’ll probably have us burned as shinecrafters.”

“Not if we get rid of the bodies,” Areana said. “Then he’ll reckon they just deserted. There’s no way he’ll imagine we managed to do away with all these.” She prodded one of the corpses with her toe. “True,” he said. “But as I said, it might not be Ilzereik. It could be a knight more like Haukun, or worse.” “Where will we go?” she asked. “All of Newland is probably occupied. For all we know, Eslen has already fallen.”

He was trying to think of an answer to that when they heard a whinny in the yard. Leoff charged to the door and saw it was Ilzereik and the rest of his men.

“Well,” he sighed. “It’s moot now.”

“Taste,” the knight said, proffering a bite of barley mush to Mery. She blinked and took a bit. “I told you we didn’t poison them,” Leoff said.

“I’m starting to believe you,” the knight replied. “I’m starting to think this is an entire nation of witches. I befriended you, composer. I treated you well.”

“Yes, but you left your men to rape my wife while you were gone,” he said. “We were just defending ourselves.”

“Jah, but how—by what means?”

Leoff firmed his jaw and didn’t answer.

The knight sat back.

“You’ll tell,” he said. “I’ve sent for the sacritor of our hansa. He should be here within a bell, and he will know what happened here. He will know what to do.”

“Shall I play you a tune in the meantime?” Mery asked.

“No,” the Hansan said. “There will be no music. If I hear anything that resembles a cantation, I’ll kill whoever starts it. Do you understand?”

“Be still, Mery,” Leoff said.

Ilzereik went back to the bodies. “Haukun was stabbed,” he mused. “The others just fell dead. Whatever you did, Haukun wasn’t affected. A puzzle.”

He went to the music Mery had packed and began pulling it out.

Someone in the yard called the knight’s name.

“Ah,” he said. “That will be the sacritor, won’t it? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather tell me? You’ll still be lustrated, but at least you won’t be questioned.”

“I’ve been ‘questioned’ by the Church before,” Leoff said, holding up his hands.

“I see. There’s a history, then. Well, it’s a shame. I was really enjoying your company. I can’t believe I was so deceived.”

He rose and went to the door. Leoff closed his eyes, trying to think of something, anything, to do. Nothing came to mind.

2 A Final Meeting

Fratrex Pell turned quickly when he heard Stephen sigh. “You!” he gasped. Beneath his graying brows, his eyes glimmered with disbelief.

Stephen wagged a finger at him. “You’ve been a bad little boy,” he said. “You and your Revesturi playmates.”

Pell drew himself taller. “Brother Stephen, there is much you don’t know, but even so you should not presume to talk to me in that fashion.” He cocked his head. “How did you get here? This tower is twenty kingsyards high.”

“I know,” Stephen replied. “It’s wonderful. Like a wizard spire from the phay stories. And so well hidden! You Revesturi are so clever-clever. Really clever. You couldn’t walk last time I saw you, Fratrex Pell.”

“I healed.”

“Oh, you healed. That’s impressive. Not as impressive as surviving the explosion at d’Ef, though. My ears are still ringing from that.”

“We were trying to stop the waurm.”

“You didn’t, though. It chased me right up into the mountains, like it was supposed to. Died like it was supposed to. And I—I found everything I was supposed to find. I came here, I suppose, to tell your superiors about your tragic and heroic end—and see what I discover.”

“I have no superiors,” Pell said. “I am the Fratrex Prismo of the Revesturi.”

Stephen crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Well, I see that now,” he said. “I can feel your power. Desmond was really lucky to get you from behind.”

“I’m stronger now than I was then.”

“Right,” Stephen said. “As the sedos power waxes. Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Brother Stephen, time is short. Did you find the answers? Did you discover how Virgenya Dare healed the world?”

Stephen laughed.

Pell watched him impassively. That seemed even funnier than the question, and Stephen’s laughter became uncontrollable. Tears sprang into his eyes, and his ribs hurt.

“Come now,” Pell said after a moment.

But that just made it harder to stop.

When, some time later, he was able to talk again, he wiped his eyes. “She didn’t heal it, you old idiot,” he said, fighting the hiccups. “She poisoned it by drawing on the sedos power. When she realized what was happening, she abandoned the high throne of its power and hid it away to try to control the damage.” “Are you saying there’s nothing to be done? Did Kauron discover nothing?”

“Of course there is something to be done,” Stephen said. “And Choron discovered the best thing of all: himself.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“That’s wonderful,” Stephen said. “Because I love to explain things. It’s my forte, as you must remember from our first meeting. Such a funny trick you played on me, that bit with you pretending to be a simple fratir cutting wood. I didn’t really appreciate it then. I assure you, now I do.”

Pell’s expression grew even more guarded. “What do you have to report, Brother Stephen?”

“Well, first of all, you were completely right about that business about there being no saints, about power being the only reality. It’s true. The sedos power is what holds the world together. It tames and orders the other energies of existence. It keeps everything from rotting into unchecked chaos. And anyone who walks a faneway takes some gift for using that force with him and becomes the conscious agent of that particular energy. But any given faneway allows only limited access to the total possibilities of the sedos—even the greatest ones, such as the one I’ve walked and the one the Fratrex Prismo walks in z’Irbina. And the one you walked in the Iutin Mountains, the faneway of Diuvo.”

“How did you know—?”

“Oh, I can see them all now, like constellations in the sky. That’s one of the particular gifts of Virgenya Dare’s secret faneway.”

“Then you can walk them all?”

“I tried walking one near the Witchhorn,” Stephen said. “It’s not enough. Take my analogy that the faneways are like constellations. Now imagine the night sky is a black board with thousands of small holes drilled in it, and the light shining through those holes from behind is the real source of the sedos power. It’s not all the little holes you want to control; it’s the one light behind them. What we call the Alwalder, I suppose. That’s what I’m after.”

“But why?”

“To save the world. To bring order and balance to its eldritch principalities.”

“I thought you just said the sedos power was the source of all of our problems.”

“The source and the solution. Virgenya Dare never saw that. She imagined the problem would just go away, but it was already too late. Still, she must have had an inkling. She made a shortcut for her descendants.”

“What?”

“Never mind that. See, it’s the lack of control and imprecise vision that’s led us to where we are. If someone—one person, not two, or three, or fifty, but one—could control the source of the sedos power, one person with a clear vision, all of this could be fixed. I’m sure of it.”

“And who will do this fixing? You?”

“Right,” Stephen said. “Without the mistakes of last time. I think I just got frustrated back then. Ruffled some feathers.”

“What are you talking about?” Fratrex Pell asked. “What other time?”

“I told you, already. Choron found himself. I found myself. Me.”

“You’re Choron?” Pell asked incredulously.

“Yes. Or yes and no. Like everything, it’s a little complicated. See, time is a funny thing in the Not World. The man you called Choron and the man you call Stephen are each echo and source of the other, and both were always working toward the promise of the one who will rise when we find the throne. As Choron I never found it. As Stephen I will.”

“Are you saying you are Choron reborn?”

“No. Imagine a plucked lute string. It vibrates side to side, a blur that appears wider than the string, and in doing so produces a tone. Let’s say Stephen is the farthest reach of that vibration on the left and Choron is the farthest reach of it on the right. But it’s the same string, the same tone. We’re one and always have been, even before the string was plucked.”

“This is a lot to ask me to take on faith.”

“Oh, I don’t care if you believe me. After all, you’re Revesturi, always questioning. That’s fine. And I won’t say there wasn’t some fiddling with things to bring them along. As Choron, I broke the law of death and made myself immortal, hoping to survive long enough to find the throne. Of course, my enemies found a way to destroy my body, but I already understood about my echoes in the past and future, and at some point they all understood about me, so together we managed—this. It’s all really very interesting.”

“So you aren’t Stephen anymore.”

“You really aren’t listening, are you?”

The fratrex frowned. “When you talk about Choron becoming immortal, breaking the law of death, being defeated—”

“Yes!” Stephen cried. “I was wondering how long it would take you. This is every bit as much fun as I imagined it would be.”

“You’re the Black Jester.”

“I never called myself that, you know. I think it was suppose to be a bit of an insult.”

“Saints,” the fratrex breathed.

“Phoodo-oglies!” Stephen breathed in imitation. “I just made that up,” he confided. “They aren’t real, either.”

“You can’t be the Black Jester and at the same time Stephen Darige,” he said. “Fratir Stephen is good, incapable of the evil things the Jester did. If you are whom you claim to be, I believe you have possessed Brother Darige. Either that or you are merely Brother Stephen gone mad.”

“That’s disappointing,” Stephen said. “You talked so fine about the intellectual purity of the Revesturi, about how your method of reasoning sets you apart from your rivals, and yet here you start with good and evil. It’s sad, really. Was Choron a good man? And yet I promise you, I walked into the mountains as Choron, and a few years later I was the Black Jester. The difference is in power; him you call Stephen is merely the Black Jester without it. But at our center we are the same. Good and evil are judgments, and in this case judgments made without understanding.”

“The Black Jester strapped razors on children’s heels and elbows and made them fight like cocks,” Fratrex Pell said.

“I told you, I was frustrated,” Stephen said. “Maybe to the point of being a little mad.”

“A little?”

“It doesn’t matter. Things have changed, and I see the way clearly now.”

“And what do you see?”

“The sedos throne is emerging again, as it never did in Choron’s time. In fact, it has already emerged in a sense—the waxing of the power has reached its peak. But the complete claim of it by any one person isn’t possible yet. I control a lot of it. The other Fratrex Prismo, whoever he is, also has a strong claim. The strongest is that of Anne Dare, because Virgenya left a shortcut to the power that privileges her heir—and founded a secret organization dedicated to making certain that heir would be led to it if the time ever came.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps she thought a descendant of hers would follow in her footsteps, deny the power, hide the throne for another two thousand years.”

“Maybe she would.”

“In the first place, that’s not enough this time. The law of death is broken. The Briar King is dead, and the forests of the world are dying, and when they are dead, we will certainly follow. But do you never see ? Don’t you have visions?”

“Of course, at times.”

“But you haven’t seen what the world will become if Anne sits the sedos throne?”

“No. I’ve not sought such a vision, and none has come to me.”

“A three-thousand-year reign of terror that makes my small epoch look like a child’s party. And at the end of it, the world passes into nothingness.”

Pell looked troubled but shrugged. “I have only your word for that,” he said. “And visions do not necessarily come to pass.”

“That’s true. And that’s why I’m here.”

“Why?”

“Well, two reasons, really. Like the others who have walked one of the greater faneways, I can see you, at best, in a cloudy fashion.”

“You just said you saw Anne.”

“Only after a fashion. I can see the world she will make. Were you always this obtuse?”

“I—”

“Rhetorical question,” Stephen said, waving him down. “It’s you I’m talking about now. I wasn’t sure who you were, how much you knew, who you are allied with. So I came to discover all of those fascinating answers.”

“And the other reason?”

“To strike a bargain. You don’t control enough of the sedos power to challenge Anne. Neither do I. But if I had your gifts, I would have a fair chance.”

“Walk the faneway of Diuvo, then.”

“It doesn’t really work that way, and I think you know it. The power is finite. With minor faneways like that of Mamres or Decmanus, tens or hundreds might have gifts at once and never be diminished. But those such as we have walked are different. For me to gain strength, you must relinquish your gifts to me—a simple process that won’t do you any real damage—or I can take them from you, which will unfortunately involve your discorporation.”

“I can either give you, who claim to be the Black Jester, the power you need to seize the greatest power in the world or die? Are those my only two choices?”

“I’m afraid so,” Stephen said apologetically.

“I see,” Fratrex Pell said, brows lowering.

It wasn’t a long fight, and when it was over, Stephen felt the new gifts settle under his skin. Then he called his captive demon and made it fly from the tower and for several leagues to the south. As he had expected, Pell had unleashed the same explosive power on him that he had on the waurm, and although he could protect himself from that, he didn’t want to risk Zemlé or his faithful Aitivar.

When he came to ground, Zemlé rushed to meet him.

“I heard the sound,” she said. “The sky was full of strange colors. I feared the worst.”

He kissed her and smiled. “I’m glad you worry about me,” he said. “But here there was no need for that. This isn’t where my real test will come.”

“You’ll win there, too,” she said.

Later that night, in their tent, she seemed less certain.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Is this really your task, to challenge the queen of Crotheny?” He rolled back a bit and propped himself on his elbows. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said. “We went through this back in the mountain. It was you and the Aitivar who were so convinced I was Kauron’s heir, back when I believed it was mere insanity. Well, you were right. Where is this sudden doubt coming from? Are your allegiences still mixed? Do you still think Anne is a savior?”

She gave him a tentative smile. “No. I suppose it’s that I never quite believed it. But I believed in the shy, smart man I met in Demsted. I thought he would find a way to help somehow.”

“Am I so different?”

“No. Stronger. Bolder. All of the things you were becoming anyway, now that I look back. It just happened so quickly.”

“Well, do you still believe in me?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good, then. Do you still want to help me?”

“I don’t see what help I can be,” she said.

He smiled. “You just said it. You believed in me. You still do. That is a strength I can always use.” “And I love you,” she said.

“And I love you, too,” he said.

He knew she would be a lovely queen. Or mistress, depending on how things went.

3 Sir Harriot’s Task

“You’re giving us too much,” Aspar said, lashing a pack onto one of the spare horses. “You’ll starve.”

“No,” Symen said. “Like as I won’t, since I’m going with you. There’s not much sense in staying at Tor Scath anymore.”

“You can’t be sure what the Church’s army intends,” Aspar said.

“That’s true,” Symen replied. “But even if they leave us be, what will we eat in a year? Two? And who’s going to hunt here, anyway? No, I’ll give you whatever I can. This world is lost, and the only thing or person in it I have any trust in is you, holter. So pack quickly, and let’s be on.”

Aspar nodded and resumed packing.

A moment later he heard someone cough softly behind him. It was Emfrith.

Sceat, Aspar thought. And again.

“I don’t understand why we’re leaving,” the young man said. “This is the perfect place to keep Winna safe.”

“Keeps monsters out, not men, and we’ll never hold off five hundred.”

“It’s an army of the Church,” Emfrith said.

“That’s the same Church that has been hanging every other villager from here to Brogswell, yah?” “They didn’t hang anyone in Haemeth,” Emfrith pointed out. “We follow the saints there.”

“Good for you. But we’ve had some experiences to make us skittish of anyone under saintly armor. Ask Winna. It’s not worth the chance. We’ve this one moment to escape, and here it is—werlic?”

“Raiht,” Emfrith agreed, sounding reluctant. Then he sighed. “Look, why don’t I just go talk to them? See what they want? If you’re right and they mean no good, we can still flee. But if you’re wrong, then we can stay here, where the monsters can’t get in, until Winna has the baby.”

“There’s not enough food for five months.”

“Me and my men can ride out and get some when it’s needed.”

“From where? The blight is moving outward.”

“Yes, but we’re riding straight into it.”

“I thought you weren’t going to question me anymore.”

“That was when I thought this was the safe place you meant.”

“There’s a safer one,” Aspar said.

“Is there?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” he said after a moment. Then he walked away.

You really love her, don’t you? Aspar thought. Grim, but I wish I could speak my mind.

His leg was throbbing as he mounted the horse he’d begun calling Grimla in hopes that a stout name would make the beast stronger.

They started southwest, off the Old King’s Road, fording the shallows of the Little Moon River before the end of the first day, then starting up into the Walham foothills. He and Winna hadn’t come this way the last time, because they had been along the Slaghish River, following the trail of the first greffyn. That had led them to Rewn Aluth and the strange, possibly dead Sefry who called herself Mother Gastya. She had sent them into the Mountains of the Hare to find a hidden valley that Aspar knew for a fact couldn’t be there.

But as with so many things, he’d been wrong. The valley had been there, and the Briar King, and Fend, and for him and Winna it had all very nearly ended there, as well. But it hadn’t, and Stephen had had a large hand in that.

He tried not to wonder where Stephen was, and he didn’t like to talk to Winna about it, because the simple fact was that the boy was most probably dead. Even if the slinders hadn’t killed him, the woorm probably had, and if not the woorm, the explosion of monastery d’Ef or one of a thousand other things. Stephen was smart and a good fellow, but surviving on his own even before the world went mad was not exactly his strongest talent.

He’d done all he could to help Stephen, hadn’t he? Followed the slinders, chased the woorm. He’d found no sign whatever of the lad.

He shifted his gaze to Winna and Ehawk. At least Ehawk had found them again. It was good to know the Watau wasn’t a lonely ghost wandering in the Bairghs.

The foothills rose and fell in ever-sharper undulating folds and ridges. It had always been easy to get turned around in the Walhams, but now, without the usual reference points, it was more difficult than ever to keep a true path. He could see that there had been a lot of rain in the last several months and much flooding. The invading growth didn’t have the same deep roots as the natural flora, and many of the ways he knew were closed by massive mud slides. Most of the ridges had washed down to bedrock, and the valleys were filled with viscous muck.

But in those low-lying places the eldritch vegetation was very strong. It was starting to sicken, but it wasn’t nearly as far gone as what he’d seen back in the Lean Gables. They had to cut their way through it in places.

They progressed very slowly. Aspar reckoned that in three days they’d managed only five leagues as the raven wings toward their destination.

And that evening, Henne, Sir Symen’s tracker, turned up with bad news.

“The churchmen are boxing you in,” he said. “Don’t know how. It’s like they know where you’re going.” “Where are they exactly?” Aspar asked him.

Henne sketched a map on the ground, and when he was done, Aspar cursed Grim and ground his teeth. I reckon Fend was telling the truth about this at least.

Because it looked like they were going to need some help.

The knight woke when Aspar’s dirk pricked his neck. To his credit, he didn’t scream or wet himself; in fact, he hardly flinched. His eyes registered first shock, then chagrin, and finally, as he understood he wasn’t dead already, curiosity.

“That’s a good man,” Aspar whispered.

“You must be Holter White.”

“Ah, I’m famous,” Aspar replied. “But I’ve not your name in my word horde.”

“That would be Roger Harriot. Sir Roger Harriot.”

“Virgenyan?”

“Yes, from St. Clement Danes.”

“But you’re not just on your way home.”

“Regrettably, no. I have several tasks to accomplish, and none involves returning to my home.” “And these tasks?”

“Well, one would be to bring to heel a certain renegade holter, should I run across him.”

“By whose order?”

“The Fratrex Prismo of the holy Church.”

“And for what reason?”

Sir Roger seemed to wonder how to answer that for a moment. “There are many I could give,” he finally replied. “But I’ve heard a lot about you, and I think I’ll tell you the truth. My primary task isn’t to find you; it’s to find the valley where you first discovered the Briar King. I’m to go there and hold it against all invaders until Niro Marco sends word.”

“Why?”

“I don’t rightly know. I don’t care. But as you seem to be going there, I thought I would best discharge my mission by stopping you here in the foothills.”

“How do you even know where you’re going?”

“You made a report to the praifec of Crotheny, and he dispatched scouts to find the place. It’s on our maps now.”

Hespero, Aspar thought darkly.

“Well,” Aspar said, “I reckon you ought to turn back.”

“Why? Because you’ve got a knife to my throat? Everything I know about you says you won’t kill me.” “You don’t know everything, though, do you?” Aspar asked.

“Well, we all have our secrets.”

His eyes shifted the barest bit, and Aspar suddenly found himself airborne, then pinned by two fantastically strong monks.

Stupid, he thought. Was it the geos making him an idiot or just old age?

It didn’t matter now. Had they caught Leshya, too?

“Are you here alone, holter?” the knight asked, answering that question.

“Yah.”

“Well, I’ll try to have someone keep you company, at least until we’ve detained your friends. Do you think they will fight? It would be foolish.”

“They might not,” Aspar said. “Take me there. I’ll talk them out of it.”

Harriot shrugged. “It doesn’t make that much difference to me. Anyway, my men have already started closing. I expect this to be over before sunrise.”

Aspar relaxed his muscles and sighed, then put everything he had into breaking loose from the monks. It was like trying to snap iron bands.

“You’ve no chance, holter,” Harriot said.

“You have to let me go,” Aspar said. “You’ve no idea what you’re doing. You said it yourself. Unless I get to that valley, everything will die.”

“That’s very dramatic,” Sir Roger replied. “In fact, the Fratrex Prismo makes similar claims about what will happen if you do reach the valley. Imagine who I believe. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to oversee this. I promise you, I will spare whoever I can.”

“Harm any of them and I’ll send you straight to Grim,” Aspar said.

“Grim? How quaint. A mountain heretic.”

“I’m serious,” Aspar said. “I’ll kill you.”

“Well that is as may be,” the knight replied. “I’ll trust you to think about the method.”

They tied him up and put him under guard, leaving him to continue contemplating his mistake. He knew that there were monks who could hear a butterfly’s wing against the breeze; Stephen had been one such. But when he’d been able to slip into camp, apparently unnoticed, he’d reckoned this bunch didn’t have any of those.

And maybe they didn’t. Leshya seemed to have escaped without being seen.

Maybe part of him wanted to be caught. This way, at least, the Sarnwood witch wouldn’t get her way. But what if Fend was right?

It was hard to even consider that. It was also moot; it no longer mattered what he thought.

A bell or so before dawn, the monks broke down the tent and lashed him over the back of a horse, then set off at a fast trot. There was a lot of shouting about formations and such, so Aspar figured that Emfrith must be giving better than Harriot had imagined he would. He wished they would set him upright so that he could see.

They reached a ridge top, and the horsemen started forming ranks.

Aspar smelled autumn leaves.

A sudden marrow-scraping scream went up, and he tried to lift his head higher. Then something knocked the horse out from under him. Blood came down like hot rain, and he had to blink it out of his eyes to see.

Gasping, he tucked his legs up and brought his bound hands from behind, cursing at the pain, eyes searching wildly for the source of the horse’s disembowelment. But all he saw were the stamping hooves of other horses, and all he heard were screams of pain, terror, and defiance.

He got his hands under his boots and pulled forward, then started working at the knots keeping his feet together.

As he did that, the fighting moved away from him. By the time he could stand up, it was well down the ridge, leaving only carnage behind. Almost twenty horses were down, and nearly as many men. He took a dirk from one of the corpses and whittled through what remained of his bonds. He found a throwing ax on a headless body and stuck it in his belt.

From his vantage, he could see two battles being fought. One was up on the ridge with him, albeit farther down. He could see only part of it, but he could make out a couple of greffyns and an utin tearing at what remained of Harriot’s rear guard.

Most of the rest of the army of the Church lay dead in the valley below, sprawled side by side with dozens of dead and dying sedhmhari. Only a few dozen men remained, and he recognized some of them as Emfrith’s horsemen.

That was his fight, then. He started down the slope as quickly as he dared and as his legs allowed him. He picked his way through the corpses, and by the time he reached the knot of men, only half a dozen of Emfrith’s men were still on their feet. They faced about ten churchmen, three of them still mounted. Of Winna there was no sign.

One of the knights saw him and wheeled his way but was unable to come to a full charge because of the heaped bodies. Aspar took the ax out of his belt and hurled it from four kingsyards away. It smacked into the knight’s visor, and his head popped back. Aspar followed close behind the missile, grabbing the man’s arm, hauling him out of the saddle, and slamming him to the ground. Then he stabbed the dirk up under the helm and though his neck.

With bleak purpose he turned to the next man, and then the next…

When it was over, Aspar, Emfrith, and two of his warriors were all that remained.

But Emfrith didn’t have long. He had been stabbed through the lungs, and blood was choking out with his breath.

“Holter,” he managed to gasp. “You have a berry for this?” He was trying to sound brave, but Aspar could see the terror on his face.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, lad,” he said. “Do you know what happened to Winna?”

“Leshya took her before the fighting started. Said you had sent for her.”

“I sent for her?”

Emfrith nodded. “Some of the knights broke off and went north. I think they may have gone after them.” “Maybe. I’ll find her.”

“I wish I could help.”

“You’ve helped plenty,” Aspar said.

“Be good to her,” Emfrith said. “You don’t deserve her. You’re a damned fine man, but you don’t deserve her.”

“I know,” Aspar said.

“It’s a good death, isn’t it?”

“It’s a good death,” Aspar agreed. “I’m proud of you. Your father will be, too.”

“Don’t you tell him. He’ll hang you.”

Aspar nodded. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “You understand?”

“Yes.”

Aspar rose and collected the ax. He found a bow and a few arrows, a dirk, then a horse. Emfrith’s men stayed with him.

He wondered where Ehawk was. He hoped he was with Leshya but didn’t have time to search the dead. The battle on the ridge seemed to be over, too. At least he didn’t see anything moving up there anymore. He rode south, along the valley bottom.

Fend was waiting for him.

4 Over Bluff and Down Slough

Neil’s steed stumbled, tried to catch her stride, then stopped and tossed her head, blowing. Her coat was slick with foam, and her withers trembled. Neil leaned forward and stroked her neck, speaking to her in his native language.

“It’ll be fine, girl,” he told her. “The prince says we’ll be giving you a rest in less than a league. But I need you to go now, yes? Let’s do it.”

He gave her a gentle nudge, and she started gamely forward, finally working up to match the canter of the others.

“It’s a beautiful evening,” he told the mare. “Look at the sun there, on the water.”

Three days of hard riding had brought them to an old coastal trail that wound over bluff and down slough. The sun was going home, and Saltmark Sound was skinned copper.

Part of him yearned toward that water, those islands, to be adrift in those terrible and familiar waters. He had been too long landlocked.

But he had things to do, didn’t he? What his heart wanted was no matter at all.

That sent him glancing ahead to where Brinna rode behind her brother, looking paler and less well than he had ever seen her. She had never ridden a horse, much less endured the tortures of a hard ride of many days. He was sore to the bone; he couldn’t imagine how she must feel. To even remain mounted she had to be belted to Berimund. He feared in his bones she wouldn’t survive.

As the sun touched the water, they came to an old castle on a little spit of stone sticking out into the sea. Barnacles up its walls showed that during the highest tides it must be cut off entirely from land. The tide was rising now but was far from high enough to cover the causeway, so they rode in to change their horses, the third time they had done so since starting their push for Crotheny. Berimund was being careful. The first of his friends he had visited had told him his father had put a price on his head and on the head of every man who aided him.

So they traveled ways less straight and warded than the great Vitellian Way.

They didn’t stop for long. Neil kissed the mare on her soaking forehead as they led her away and met his new mount, Friufahs, a roan gelding. He was introducing himself when he heard Brinna say something he couldn’t make out.

“It’s not seemly,” he heard Berimund answer.

“Nevertheless,” Brinna replied, “it is my wish.”

His gaze attracted by the conversation, Neil saw Berimund looking at him.

The Hansan walked over. “You have been alone with my sister on more than one occasion.”

“That’s true,” Neil said.

“Have you been improper with her?”

Neil straightened. “I understand you might doubt me, but why would you cast such aspersions on your sister, sir?”

“My sister is both very wise and very naïve. She has not known many men, Sir Neil. I’m only asking you for the truth.”

“Nothing inappropriate happened,” Neil said. “Not when we were alone. When she set me off her ship in Paldh, I did kiss her. I did not mean to dishonor her in any way.”

“She told me about that. She told me she asked you to kiss her.”

He nodded.

“You did not think that part worth telling, although not doing so would put you in my ill graces?” “It is her business,” Neil said, “and not my place to make excuses.”

“You admit, then, that you should have refused her?”

“I should have. I can’t say I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“I see.”

He looked out at the half-vanished sun. “She wants to ride with you for a while,” he said. “I don’t think it’s right, but she is my sister, and I love her. Do not take undue advantage, sir.”

He returned to Brinna and helped her over and up behind Neil. He felt her there, taut as a cord, as Berimund strapped them together. Her arms went awkwardly around his waist, as if she were trying somehow to hold on to him without touching him.

Resupplied and rehorsed, they continued on along the coast. Small, scallop-winged silhouettes appeared and fluttered against the bedimmed sky, and a chill breeze came off the waves. Far out at sea he made out the lantern on the prow of a lonely ship. Inland, a nightjar churred.

“I’m sorry about your queen,” Brinna said. “I wish I could have met her.”

“I wish you could have, too,” Neil replied. “I wish I could have saved her.”

“You’re thinking if you hadn’t been in our prison, you might have.”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t say. But I couldn’t act until Berimund came, and I wouldn’t have been able to find where she was without him. Neither could you have.”

He nodded but didn’t answer.

“He thought she was safe. He intended to keep her safe.”

“I know,” Neil said. “I don’t blame you.”

“You blame yourself.”

“I shouldn’t have let her come.”

“How would you have stopped her?”

He didn’t have anything to reply to that, so they rode on tacitly for a bit. “It sounds so easy in the stories, riding a horse,” Brinna finally ventured.

“It’s not so bad when you’re used to it,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“Parts of me are on fire, and others feel dead,” she said.

“Then let’s rest for a day or so,” he urged. “Let’s get you out of the saddle.”

“We can’t,” she murmured. “We have to reach her before Robert does.”

“Anne?”

“Not Anne. A little girl. She’s in Haundwarpen with a man and a woman. There is music all around them, some terrible, some beautiful, some both.”

“That sounds familiar,” Neil said.

“The man and woman are newly wed. The child is not theirs.”

“There was a composer named Ackenzal,” Neil said. “A favorite of—of the queen’s. She attended the wedding, and I went with her. She and his wife have a girl in their care: Mery, the daughter of Lady Gramme.”

“Yes. And half sister to Anne, yes?”

“So they say.”

“You can guide us when we’re near?”

“What has this to do with mending the law of death?” Neil asked.

“Everything,” she replied. “And if Robert knows that, she is in terrible danger.”

“How should Robert know it?”

“I don’t know. But I see him there.” She paused for a moment. “I know what killed Queen Muriele and Berimund’s wulfbrothars.”

“It nearly killed you, too.”

“Yes. It’s music, horrible and yet somehow lovely. Once you begin listening, it is very difficult to stop. If you hadn’t stopped me, if you hadn’t called that other name, I would be gone now.”

“The name from the ship.”

“Yes,” she whispered. He wished he could turn and see her face. “The ship, when I wasn’t me and you weren’t you.”

“But now we are who we are.”

“Yes,” she replied. “We are who we are.”

He thought she paused, as if meaning to go on, but she didn’t, at least following from that thought. “I told you I had a higher purpose,” she finally said.

“You did.”

Again she seemed to feud with herself for a moment before going on.

“I once had three sisters,” she said. “We were called by many names, but in Crotheny and Liery we were most often known as the Faiths.”

“As in the stories? The four queens of Tier na Seid?”

“Yes and no. There are many stories. I am what is real.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There were Faiths before me who wore my masks. Many of them, going back to the hard days after Virgenya Dare vanished. We were known as Vhatii then. Time changes tongues and twists names. We have lived, some of us hiding in the open, others secluded in distant places. We’re not real sisters, you understand, but women born with the gift. When we grow old, when our powers fail and even the drugs no longer open our vision, we find our replacements.”

“But what do you do?”

“It’s hard to explain. We are very much creatures of two natures. Here, we are human; we eat and breathe, live and die. But in the Ambhitus, the Not World, we are the sum of all who have gone before us—more and less than human. And we see need. Until recently our visions were rarely specific; we reacted as plants bend toward the sun. But since the law of death has been broken, our visions have become more like true prescience. My sisters and I worked for years to assure that Anne would take the throne, and in one terrible, clear moment I saw how mistaken we were to do so.

“My sisters would not believe me, and so they died, along with the order we founded, or at least most of them. Your Alis was once one of ours.”

“She knew who you were.”

“When she saw me, yes. Not before.”

“How did your sisters die?”

“That’s complicated, too. Anne killed them, in a way—the Anne that was and will be, not the one you know. The one she is becoming.”

“How did you escape?”

“I withdrew from the Ambhitus and hid. I abandoned my role as a Faith and dedicated myself to correcting our mistake.”

“And now?”

“As I said, Anne is beyond me. But I have a chance to mend the law of death. The girl, Mery—we’ve been watching her. She has a strange and wonderful power—like mine in ways but also unlike anything that has ever been. Before she died, one of my sisters planted the seed in the composer so that he and Mery could undo the damage to the law. I must now see that to fruition.”

“If the law of death is mended—”

“Yes. Robert will die.”

“Let’s do that, then,” he muttered.

The moon set, and stars jeweled the sky. They moved from canter to trot and back to delay wearing out their mounts.

Brinna, shivering from fatigue, sagged into him and then straightened.

“Hold on or you’ll fall off,” he said.

“I wish…” she sighed.

“What?” He managed to croak, though he knew he shouldn’t.

She didn’t answer, and behind him she felt even more rigid than when she first had been placed there. “I said there were three reasons I risked having you brought up from the dungeons,” she murmured. “Yes. You said the third didn’t matter.”

“I said it didn’t matter then,” she said. “I never meant it didn’t matter. Do you remember the first two reasons?”

“You said that you didn’t believe I could be an assassin and that you thought we could help each other.” “You have to understand my world,” she said. “The way I lived. Four attempts that I know of were made on my life; one was by one of my own cousins, who was afraid I would see that he was cuckolding my father. A coven-trained assassin sent from Crotheny when I was ten. I don’t know who sent her. A Black Talon killer from the dark forests of Vestrana came closest. He actually had the dagger to my throat. I want you to understand all of that because although I didn’t want to think you would kill me, part of me still thought you might.”

“Then why? What was the third reason?”

“The third reason was that I was willing to risk death to touch you again.”

The horse thunked along in silence as a great bloody moon sank toward the dark sea.

“I love you,” he said.

He felt her soften, then mold against his back, and her arms were suddenly comfortable and familiar around his waist. He couldn’t, didn’t dare turn around to kiss her, but it didn’t matter. It was the best thing he had ever felt in his life, and for the next few bells nothing, not his failure, not his grief, not even his thirst for revenge, could distract him from the woman who had her arms around him, from the mystery and wonder of her.

5 Acmemeno

Cazio stroked Austra’s face, then gently prized open her lips and dribbled some watered wine between them. After a moment her throat worked, and the liquid went down.

He regarded her still features, trying not to let the strange panic rise.

She’s still alive, and so there’s hope, he thought.

“Anne will have chirgeons who can cure you,” he assured the sleeping girl. “This always turns out well in the stories, doesn’t it? Although there it’s usually the kiss of the handsome prince. Am I not handsome or princely enough?”

The carriage rumbled on for a moment.

“We might not even have to go all the way to Eslen,” he told her. “We’ll be at Glenchest by this afternoon. Probably the duchess can help us.”

Austra, of course, said nothing.

They ran into a knight and his retainers about half a league from Glenchest, one Sir William, a servant of the duchess. He escorted them back to the rather baroque and defenseless mansion. The duchess did not meet them, which was rather uncharacteristic, but after the men were settled in quarters in the village, Cazio received an invitation to dine with her. He took z’Acatto and Austra in the carriage.

Elyoner Dare was a petite woman whose demure composure gave little immediate hint of her deep satisfaction in the pursuit of vice. One usually discovered her pleasantly wicked nature early in conversation, but this day she was very different from the last time he had seen her. She wore a black dress and a black net on her hair, and her courtiers and servants, usually quite colorfully attired, were also dressed in muted tones.

When they entered, she rose and offered her hand. Once they all had kissed it, she bent and kissed Cazio on the cheeks.

“It’s good to see you, mi dello,” the duchess said. “All is dark, but you are still a light to these eyes.” “Duchess Elyoner, I would be pleased to present my swordmaster and mentor—” He realized he did not know the old man’s real name. Z’Acatto was the family nickname and simply meant “the cursed.”

“Acmemeno d’Eriestia dachi Vesseriatii,” z’Acatto said. “At your service, Duchess.”

Cazio blinked, trying not to show his surprise. The duochi of the Vesseriatii were some of the richest, most powerful men in Vitellio.

Elyoner kissed him on the cheeks as well.

“Austra is with us,” Cazio said. “She isn’t well. I was hoping your chirgeons could help her.” “Austra? Ill? Of course we shall do what we can.” Her forehead puckered in a small frown. “How is it you were not with Anne when…” She didn’t finish, but her eyes seemed to glisten a bit.

“She sent us away, to Dunmrogh,” Cazio replied, then caught Elyoner’s tone.

“When what?” he grated.

Cazio sat on the very bench where he first had kissed Austra and took a deep pull from the carafe of harsh red wine. He glanced at z’Acatto as the old man came up and then handed him the stoneware jug. Oddly, the older man hesitated, then took a drink.

“Anything else you have to tell me?” Cazio asked, trying to work up some anger and finding he couldn’t. “Are you actually a duoco? Or perhaps meddicio of z’Irbina?”

“My brother is duoco,” z’Acatto said. “I assume he is. I haven’t seen or heard from him in years.” “Why? Why did you live in my house as if you were my father’s servant? Some vagabond soldier he dragged back from the wars?”

Z’Acatto took another drink, then another.

“I always told you I did not know the face of the man who killed your father,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I lied.”

Cazio stared at the old man, and his life seemed to stretch out behind him like a rope he was trying—and failing—to balance on. Was anything he knew true?

“Who killed him?” he demanded.

Z’Acatto squinted off into the middle distance. “We were in a little town called Fierra, in the Uvadro Mountains. They make a fortified wine there called uchapira. We were drinking a lot of it, your father and I. There was a man; I don’t even remember his name. Turned out I had slept with his woman the night before, and he called me to steel. Only I was too drunk. When I got up to fight, my legs failed me. When I awoke, your father was out in the street with him. I was only out for a few moments, so I was still drunk and mean. I only meant to fight my own duel, but when I came screaming out of the tavern, Mamercio was distracted, and the man stabbed him right through the spleen.” He looked back at Cazio. “I killed your father, Cazio. My drunken stupidity killed him. Do you understand?”

Cazio stood jerkily. “All this time—”

“I did the only thing I knew to do,” he said. “I took his place, raised you.”

“The man he fought?”

“I killed him, of course.”

“You could have told me. You could have told me a lot of things.”

“I could have. I was a coward.”

Cazio felt his heart constrict as he looked at this man he did not know, had never known.

“This is worse, knowing now,” Cazio said. “Now, when everything is all coming apart.”

“What will you do?”

“Now that Anne is dead? Kill Hespero. Find a cure for Austra. Go home. Why didn’t you tell me?” he shouted.

“I can only apologize so much,” z’Acatto grunted.

“You haven’t apologized,” Cazio said.

“Cazio…”

“Go away,” he said, suddenly very tired. “Just leave me alone, whoever you are.”

Z’Acatto got up slowly and stood there, arms hanging at his sides, for a long moment. Then he walked off.

Cazio continued drinking.

He woke the next morning, still on the bench, with one of Elyoner’s pages tapping him apologetically. He groggily levered himself up to a sitting position.

“What?” he said.

“My lady would have you come to her chambers at third bell.”

“What bell is it now?”

“Second, sir,”

“Fine,” Cazio said. “I’ll be there.”

It was only as he found his room and was bathing as best he could from the basin that he began to worry about the place assigned for the meeting.

When he arrived to find the duchess in bed and Austra on an adjacent bed, his worries intensified. “Don’t look like that,” Elyoner said with more than a hint of her old self. “Every man wants a go with two women.”

“Duchess—”

“Hush and sit on the foot of the bed,” she said, sitting up against enormous pillows. She was clad in a dressing gown of black-and-gold brocade.

As Cazio sat gingerly on the bed, two serving girls came in bearing trays of food. One was placed in front of the duchess, another next to Cazio. A third servant, a slight girl with large eyes, entered with what looked like porridge and began to feed Austra.

“Greyna is very good,” the duchess said, nodding at the girl. “Her brother was injured in the head at a joust and was unable to feed himself. He lived two years, so she’s had plenty of practice. She has a large soul.”

“Thank you for all of your kindnesses, Duchess.”

Elyoner glanced over at Austra. “That girl is as dear to me as Anne was,” she said. “She was as much my niece as Fastia or Elseny.” She shook her head. “I am hardly thirty, Cazio. I hope when you are my age you have not lost so many dear ones.”

“Austra isn’t dead,” he said.

“No,” the duchess replied. “She isn’t. Break your fast.”

He looked down at the tray, thinking he wasn’t hungry, but the cream fritters, sausage, and dewberries invited him to try a few bites, anyway.

“Unlike Greyna’s brother, Austra doesn’t seem to have an injury to her head or any wounds at all except those cuts on her legs. You said it was done by a churchman. Do you know what he was up to?”

“No. She said he said something about the ‘blood telling’ but nothing about what that meant.”

“Curious,” Elyoner said. “In any event, whatever has happened to the dear girl, I think we must suspect some eldritch cause—something I, unfortunately, know very little about.”

“Do you know anyone who knows more?”

“I assume you mean outside of the Church?”

“That’s probably best.”

“No, not really. But surely you do.”

He nodded. “Yes, there’s an old Sefry woman in Eslen that Anne consulted.”

“Eslen won’t be easy to get into,” Elyoner said. “The city is under siege, with Hespero’s army camped on the south and Hansa on the north. The fleets have met in Foambreaker Bay, but I haven’t heard much more than that.”

“Who rules?”

“Artwair had declared himself regent,” she said. “The logical heir is Charles, but no one wants that charade again. After him it gets complicated; there’s Gramme’s bastard, Robert, any number of cousins.” “You,” Cazio pointed out.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s out of the question. I simply won’t do it. Buts it’s actually rather moot, because I suspect Eslen is going to fall, and Marcomir and Hespero will decide the matter.”

Cazio shrugged. “I don’t care who rules. They can put a pig on the throne as far as I’m concerned. But I’ll have Austra back, and I need to kill Hespero.”

“Kill the Fratrex Prismo of the Church? I’ll be interested to see how you do that.”

“I’ve met them that seemed immortal and unbeatable before,” Cazio said. “Most of them are dead now, or might as well be.”

“That’s it, then? You’re really going to Eslen?”

He nodded. “If I can impose on you for a few horses.”

“Of course,” she replied. “Do you have a plan for getting into the city?”

“No,” he said. “But I’ll have one when I need one.”

He rode out the next day with Austra in the carriage and three spare horses. He didn’t bother to find z’Acatto to say good-bye.

The road took him west across the flat yellowing grass of the Mey Ghorn plain. Clouds scudded across the sky like fast ships until near sundown they piled up and blotted out the stars. The air was wet and cool and smelled like rain when he went to where Austra lay and fed her some porridge and watered wine. She seemed thinner.

“The Sefry will know what to do,” he assured her. “Mother Uun will have a cure.”

The rain came gently enough, and he lay there listening to it on the canvas until sleep at last folded him into her blanket.

He woke to the morning songs of birds and realized that the sun was well up and he had lost time. He felt guilty for sleeping at all when every bell counted. He gave Austra her morning meal and ate a bit of dried meat. He found the horses grazing and brought them back to the harness. He settled onto the seat and started out.

It had been a long time, he realized, since he had been alone, his time in the wine cellar at Dunmrogh aside. He wasn’t technically alone now, but for all intents and purposes he was. He’d once spent a good deal of his time solitary, and he understood now how much he missed it.

What sort of man am I? he wondered. Anne was dead. Austra was well on her way to joining her. And yet, somehow, part of him was excited to be in the quiet of his own thoughts, with no one questioning him, with nothing to do but watch the road.

“Anne is dead,” he murmured aloud. He remembered his first sight of her, bathing in a pool in the wilds around the Coven St. Cer. She had become so completely a part of his life, that the thought that he would never see her again seemed not only wrong but fundamentally impossible. They had survived so much together, and for what? For her to die now? Had any of it been worth it?

But of course, no matter what one survived, death was always coming. There was no winning that game. By noon the road was winding gently downhill, and the occasional malend could be seen turning its sails in the distance. He stopped to feed and wash Austra and let the horses go to water. He was just about to start off again when riders appeared on the road ahead.

He looked about, but it was all open fields. If they were enemies, there wasn’t much he could do. Oddly enough, the impression he had was that the horses he saw were mounted by giant mushrooms, but as they drew nearer, he saw that they were Sefry, wearing their customary broad-brimmed hats to keep the sun from their dainty skins.

When they were even nearer, he recognized their colors as those of Anne’s Sefry bodyguard.

He watched them come, wondering what they could possibly be up to. Having failed their mistress, were they now on their way to cast themselves into the eastern sea?

He counted forty of them and wondered why he bothered to do that. Weren’t these friends? If they were, why did he have such a strange feeling in his belly’s abyss?

And why were they flanking him?

He drew the horses to a halt. One of the riders came forward and pulled down the gauze that hid most of his face, revealing Cauth Versial, the leader of Anne’s guard.

“Cazio,” Cauth said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yes,” Cazio replied. “Fancy it.”

“You’ve heard the news?”

Cazio nodded, noting from the corner of his eye that the Sefry were continuing to surround him. “It was a terrible shock.”

“I would imagine,” Cazio said. “To have the person you were supposed to be protecting murdered in plain sight with you all around her. How could that happen?”

“I’m sure if you had been there, things would have gone differently,” Cauth said.

“I’m sure of that, too,” Cazio said.

“Austra is in the wagon, I take it.”

“Why would you think that?”

Cauth sighed. “Time is short,” he said. “I won’t waste it bantering with you. I’ve seen you fight, and I imagine you’ll probably kill a few of us if you choose to, but there’s no reason it should come to that.” “Why should it come to that?”

“It shouldn’t. We’ve come to escort you to Eslen.”

“How nice. I was going there anyway. But why do I need an escort?”

“The city is under siege. You’ll need our help to get in.”

“But why are you interested in helping? I suppose is my real question.”

“We’re not,” Cauth said. “Austra is our concern. Whether you’re there or not is immaterial.”

“What do you want with Austra?”

“That’s nothing to concern yourself about.”

“Oh, I’m very much concerned.”

Cauth started to say something, but then he peered beyond Cazio, and his face wrinkled in what seemed to be chagrin.

“Not traveling alone, after all,” he said.

Cazio turned and saw, on the hill, a line of pikemen forming up.

“Z’Acatto,” he murmured.

“Come along,” Cauth said, drawing his sword. Cazio drew Acredo, noticing as he did so that six archers had arrows aimed at him.

“We’ll go up the hill and talk to your friends,” Cauth said. “We’ll explain that there’s no need for a fight, yes?”

“If you insist,” Cazio said.

“Don’t forget that Austra will be here, with my men.”

“I won’t.”

He marched up the hill with the Sefry. Z’Acatto watched them come, sitting a gray stallion in front of his men.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Cazio shouted once they were in earshot.

“No, you didn’t,” the old man said. “And I wasn’t planning to give it. I told the men I would get them to Eslen, that’s all.”

“Good, then.”

“Who are your friends?”

“Anne’s old guard,” he replied. “They’ve kindly offered to escort me to the castle.”

“Well, good,” z’Acatto said. “Then you’re well off my hands.”

Cazio nodded. “How was the wine? Did you drink it yet?”

“Not yet,” z’Acatto said. “It’s not the right time.”

“I’m not sure there’s going to be a better one.”

“You just want a taste of it.”

“I won’t deny that,” Cazio said. Then he spun and punched Cauth in the jaw, drew Acredo, and threw himself flat as arrows whirred overhead.

They want Austra alive, he thought, praying he was right, knowing in his bones this was the best choice. With a roar the pikemen started down the hill.

6 Bracken Hope

Fend didn’t have much of his army left, either. One of the Vaix stood behind him, favoring an injured leg. Of monsters, Aspar saw only a greffyn, a wairwulf, and two utins.

That was still likely to be more than he could kill, but he was ready to try. “I told you you were going to need my help,” the Sefry said.

“Yah, thanks,” he said, nocking an arrow to the string of the unfamiliar bow.

The wairwulf and the utins were fast, though, moving in front of Fend before he could aim.

“Aspar,” Fend called. “If you manage to kill me here or, more likely, if I kill you, what happens to Winna, to your child, to your precious forest? I’ll tell you. That knight of Gravio and his twenty men are going to catch her. Probably they’ll kill her. Whoever sent them—and I’ll bet my other eye that it was Hespero—doesn’t have any interest in bringing a new Briar King into the world, not until they’ve taken the sedos throne and hold sway over everything. You and I have the same interest, Aspar.”

“I doubt that.”

“Doubt it if you want; my offer to help still stands. I can find the Vhenkherdh; you know I don’t need you for that. And yes, I’d love to kill you now, but then I would have one less man—or monster, which is more what you are—to go up against this knight with. We need each other. We can settle our differences afterward, don’t you think?”

Aspar stared into Fend’s single eye, remembering the sight of Qerla’s dead body, remembering the last time they had been in the valley of the Briar King.

He had never hated the Sefry more, but the geos wouldn’t let him fire.

“Let’s stop bloody talking, then,” he snarled, lowering the bow. “Let’s go.”

Stephen and Zemlé floated in the grip of the Vhelny, which, now that Stephen had gentled it, was soft, firm, almost velvety. He had determined that the demon’s limbs were more like tentacles than arms. It was still obfuscated from the examination of Stephen’s senses; no power he had or command he could give would lift that apparently ancient magic and reveal the creature’s true appearance. It was a subtle thing that would take time and perhaps more power to overcome.

He was happy that the cloud that concealed the Vhelny had no effect on his own vision, however, as they drifted through the delicate layers of clouds and the vista below revealed itself.

Directly beneath his feet Eslen castle pointed towers up at him like whimsical lances. About that were the tiers of the city and the long, green island of Ynis, held all around by the two mighty rivers and a thousand neat canals stretching off toward the horizon.

And along the banks of those rivers, beside those canals, were fires, tents, and tens of thousands of men. West across a great bay, beyond an awesome many-toothed wall, the Lier Sea was thickly jeweled with ships for as far as he could see.

“Eslen,” Zemlé breathed.

“Have you been here before?” he asked.

“Never.”

“Nor have I.”

That wasn’t exactly true. He had never been to this Eslen, but he remembered an earlier, much smaller one, little more than a hill fort, really, a tiny place trying not to be crushed by giants, its little leaders capering to his will.

Now it was quite splendid, though. He could hardly wait to see the royal scriftorium. Who knew what precious texts it might hold, unappreciated for millennia?

But first things first.

He had the Vhelny set them down on a pretty little hill on the island, where they had a good view of the surrounds, then set the demon to guard them from anyone approaching. They picnicked on salty ham, pears, and a sweet red wine. Zemlé was nervous at first, but when no one bothered them, she eventually relaxed and even drowsed.

He noticed the Vhelny drifting near.

“I smell the throne,” it said.

“Yes,” Stephen said. “So do I. It’s not here, but it will be soon, down there in the shadow city. That must be where Virgenya put her shortcut.”

“You’re speaking nonsense, wormling.”

He shook his head. “No. She left the power, but she left a key to it in the blood of her line and a place for that key to unlock. She made a faneway, a brief one containing only two fanes—but separated by a hundred leagues. But once one of her heirs visited the one, it was inevitable that they should visit the other and inherit much of her power. That’s what happened to Anne. But Anne isn’t Virgenya. She won’t use the power and then give it up.”

“That’s why you seek the throne? To save the world?” the Vhelny sounded dubious.

“To make it what it should be.”

“Then why not go now to the city of shadows and wait?”

Stephen plucked a straw of grass and placed it between his teeth. “Because I can’t make out even the faintest shadow of Anne anymore. Even after I walked the faneway, I couldn’t see anything about her, but I knew where she was. Now it’s as if she’s gone completely. She might be a thousand leagues from here or right there, waiting for me. I can still see Hespero, and I should probably challenge him first, garner his strength before attempting Anne.”

“Coward.”

“Ah, you want me to rush into this and lose. You’d like to be free again. You won’t be, I promise.” “Man-worm, you know so little.” Stephen felt the prick of a thousand ghostly needles against his flesh. He rolled his eyes and dismissed the attack with a wave of his hand.

“Hush. I’m going to try to find her again. Maybe being closer will help.”

The Vhelny said nothing, but he felt it coil in upon itself, sulking.

He sent his senses drifting, expanding away from him like ripples in a pond. There was the throbbing sickness that was the emerging throne; there was the contained puissance of the man whom he once had known as Praifec Hespero but who lately had risen in the world. He would be difficult. Should he make an alliance with him against Anne? That might be the safest course; he could strike the Fratrex Prismo once they had won.

But then, Hespero would nurse the same plan.

He was almost ready to give up when something caught his attention, a sort of glimmer in the corner of his eye. It was a few leagues from the city, and like Eslen-of-Shadows, it reeked of Cer.

At first he didn’t understand, but after a moment he smiled in delight and clapped his hands together. “I should have guessed,” he said. “This is really wonderful. And no one else knows.”

“What do you babble about?” the Vhelny asked.

“We’ll just go and see,” Stephen said, rubbing his hands together. “At worst it will help pass the time. But I don’t think it will be worst. The first thing is to find a safe place for Zemlé.”

The last time Aspar had seen the Sa Ceth ag Sa’Nem, the “Shoulders of Heaven,” he had been in the bloom of early and unexpected love. They—and everything else he saw—had appeared beautiful beyond imagining.

He supposed they still were, those mammoth peaks whose summits were so high that they faded into the sky like the moon at midday. But he wasn’t giddy with love this time, far from it. No, he was thinking mostly about killing.

The geos wouldn’t let him, not yet, not until he actually had gotten Winna to the Vhenkherdh or, presumably, when she got there with Leshya. Until then, he couldn’t slit Fend crotch to breastbone because then Fend’s monsters would kill him, and the geos didn’t want that.

That was how things were. When they reached the valley, they would change.

He no longer held much hope that anything useful could be done there. He didn’t doubt that Fend would cut open Winna and offer whatever was growing in her in some grizzly and pointless sacrifice dreamt up by the diseased mind of the Sarnwood witch. But heal the forest, bring it back? It didn’t seem possible. It also didn’t seem very likely that he and Winna were going to get out of the valley alive once they got there. It might be that the best he could do was give her an easy death, then slaughter Fend and as many of the others as he could before they took him down. The thought of dying didn’t bother him much; without the forest and without Winna, there wasn’t anything keeping him in the lands of fate.

He was still in that bleak mood a few bells later, when the unexpected walked up and slapped it right out of him.

They were switchbacking up to the top of a long ridge of hills when a stream crossed their path. And there, just where the water ran off the hill, grew a little green fern. Not a black spider tree or dragon-tongue thing but a simple honest bracken.

Farther along the trail they found more, and by day’s end they were in almost natural woodland again. For the first time since entering the King’s Forest his chest relaxed a bit, and the stench of putrefaction was almost gone.

So the heart of it is still alive, he thought. Leshya was right about that, at least. Maybe she was right about more.

Leshya had taken Winna, which suggested the Sefry also thought that the child she carried might be the solution to the problem. But had she thought that all along, or had she heard his conversation with Fend? And Leshya and Winna weren’t alone. There was a third set of tracks: Ehawk’s. Leshya was taking them to the valley the same way Aspar had the last time, a long way around that required climbing down a deep gorge of briar trees.

They’d left their trail a day before; Fend was going by a more direct route that would allow horses in. That was how the knight was going, too. With any luck at all, they would actually beat Leshya, Winna, and Ehawk. When Winna entered the valley, the geos ought to lift, and then Aspar could do as he pleased.

By nightfall, with the sound of whippoorwills around him, he no longer was so certain what that would be. Because he had hope again, as frail and as obstinate as a bracken.

7 The Proof of the Vintage

Cazio fought in a bloody blur, all sense of time lost. His arm was so tired that he’d had no choice but to switch to his left, and when that failed him, he went back to the right, but the rest hadn’t helped it much. His lungs flamed in his chest, and his legs wobbled beneath him. As he clumsily drew Acredo from his latest opponent, he saw another coming. He spun to face the foe and kept spinning, toppling to the bloody earth. The Sefry slashed at him with a curved sword, but Cazio kept rolling, then reversed direction and thrust Acredo out hopefully. The Sefry, probably nearly as tired as he was, obligingly ran onto the point. He slid down the blade and onto Cazio, gasping strange curses before setting off west. Grunting, Cazio tried to push the dead weight off, but his body didn’t want to cooperate. He summoned the image of Austra, helpless in the carriage, and finally managed to roll the man off and stagger back to his feet, leaning on Acredo just in time to meet five more of the Sefry, who were spreading to surround him.

He heard someone behind him.

“It’s me,” z’Acatto’s voice said.

Cazio couldn’t help a tired grin as the old man’s back came against his.

“We’ll hold each other up,” the mestro said.

From that simple touch, Cazio felt a rush of strength he had no notion still lived in him. Acredo came up, fluid, almost with a life of its own. Steel rang behind him, and Cazio shouted hoarsely, parrying an attack and drilling his rapier through a yellow-eyed warrior.

“Glad I came?” z’Acatto grunted.

“I had the upper hand anyway,” Cazio said. “But I don’t mind the company.”

“That’s not the impression I had.”

Cazio thrust, parried a counter to his arm, and sent his enemy dancing back from his point.

“I sometimes speak too quickly,” Cazio admitted.

The two Sefry he faced came at him together. He bound the blade of the first to strike and ran through the other, then let go of the blade and punched the first man in the face. He reeled back, during which time Cazio withdrew Acredo and set it back to guard.

He heard z’Acatto grunt, and something stung Cazio’s back. He dispatched the staggering Sefry, then turned in time to parry a blow aimed at z’Acatto. The old man thrust into the foe’s belly, and suddenly they were alone. Around them the battle was nearly over, with z’Acatto’s men surrounding a small knot of the remaining Sefry.

Z’Acatto sat down hard, holding his side. Cazio saw blood spurting through his fingers, very dark, nearly black.

“I think,” z’Acatto grunted, “it’s time we drank that wine.”

“Let’s bind you up first,” Cazio said.

“No need for that.”

Cazio got a knife, cut a broad strip from a Sefry shirt, and started wrapping it tightly around z’Acatto’s torso. The wound was a puncture, very deep.

“Just get the damned wine,” the mestro said.

“Where is it?” Cazio asked, feeling the apple in his throat.

“In my saddle pack,” z’Acatto wheezed.

It took Cazio a while to find the horse, which wisely had moved away from the fighting.

He dug one of the bottles of Zo Buso Brato out and then raced back to where his swordmaster still sat waiting. His head was down, and for a moment Cazio thought he was too late, but then the old man lifted his arm, proffering a corkscrew.

“It might be vinegar,” Cazio cautioned, flopping down next to his mentor.

“Might be,” z’Acatto agreed. “I was saving it for when we got back to Vitellio, back to your house.” “We can still wait.”

“We’ll have the other bottle there.”

“Fair enough,” Cazio agreed.

The cork came out in one piece, which was astonishing, considering its age. Cazio handed it to z’Acatto. The older man took it weakly and smelled it.

“Needs to breathe,” he said. “Ah, well.” He tilted it back and took a sip, eyes closed, and smiled. “That’s not too bad,” he murmured. “Try it.”

Cazio took the bottle and then hesitantly took a drink.

In an instant the battlefield was gone, and he felt the warm sun of Vitellio, smelled hay and rosemary, wild fennel, black cherry—but underneath that something enigmatic, as indescribable as an ideal sunset. Tears sprang in his eyes, unbidden.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “Perfect. Now I understand why you’ve been trying to find it for so long.” Z’Acatto’s only answer was the faint smile that remained on his face.

“I’ll tell them I did it,” Mery said. “I’ll tell them you weren’t even here.”

Leoff shook his head and squeezed her shoulder. “No, Mery,” he said. “Don’t do that. It wouldn’t work, anyway.”

“I don’t want them to hurt you again,” she explained.

“They’re not going to hurt him,” Areana promised in a hushed and strained voice.

Yes they are, he thought. And they’ll hurt you, too. But if we can keep them from examining Mery, from noticing the wrongness about her, she might have a chance.

“Listen,” he began, but then the door opened.

It wasn’t a sacritor standing there or even Sir Ilzereik.

It was Neil MeqVren, Queen Muriele’s bodyguard.

It was like waking up in a strange room and not knowing how you got there. Leoff just stared, rubbing the bent fingers of his right hand on his opposite arm.

“You’re all right?” Neil asked.

Leoff plucked his voice from somewhere. “Sir Neil,” he said cautiously. “There are Hansan knights and warriors about. All over.”

“I know.” The young knight walked over to Areana and cut her bonds, then Leoff’s, and helped him up. He only glanced at the dead men on the floor, then at Areana’s swollen face.

“Did anyone still living do that, lady?” he softly asked her.

“No,” Areana said.

“And your head, Cavaor?” he asked Leoff.

Leoff gestured at the dead. “It was one of them,” he said.

The knight nodded and seemed satisfied.

“What are you doing here?” Areana asked.

The answer came from an apparition near the door. Her hair was as white as milk, and she was so pale and handsome that at first Leoff thought she might be Saint Wyndoseibh herself, come drifting down from the moon on cobwebs to see them.

“We’ve come to meet Mery,” the White Lady said.

Neil watched the stars appear and listened as the hum and whirr of night sounds rose around him. He sat beneath an arbor, half an arrow shot from the composwer’s cottage.

Muriele was there, too, still wrapped in the linens from Berimund’s hideaway. She’d made most of the trip unceremoniously tied to the back of a horse, but once in Newland, they’d found a small wain for her to lie in state on.

She needed to be buried soon. They hadn’t had any salt to pack her in, and the scent of rot was starting to remark itself.

He noticed a slim shadow approaching.

“May I?” Alis’ voice inquired from the darkness.

He gestured toward a second bench.

“I’ve not much idea what they’re talking about in there,” she said. “But I got us this.” She held up a bottle of something. “Shall we have the wake?”

He searched for something to say, but there was too much in him to let anything come out right. He saw her tilt the bottle up, then down. She dabbed her lips and reached it toward him. He took it and pressed the glass lip against his own, held his breath, and took a mouthful. He almost didn’t manage to swallow it; his mouth told him it was poison and wanted it out.

When he swallowed it, however, his body began to thank him almost immediately.

He took another swallow—it was easier this time—and passed it back to her.

“Do you think it’s true?” he asked. “About Anne?”

“Which? That she slew forty thousand men with shinecraft or that she’s dead?”

“That she’s dead.”

“From what I can tell,” she said, “the news came from Eslen, not from Hansa. I don’t see what anyone there would have to gain from letting such a rumor circulate.”

“Well, that’s a full ship, then,” he said, taking the again proffered bottle and drinking more of the horrible stuff.

“Don’t start that,” Alis chided.

“I was guard to both of them.”

“And you did an amazing job. Without you they would have both been dead months ago.”

“Months ago, now. What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know. Does it make a difference if you live one year or eighty? Most people seem to think so.” She took the bottle and tugged at it hard. “Anyway, if anyone is to blame for Muriele’s death, it’s me. You weren’t her only bodyguard, you know.”

He nodded, starting to feel the tide come up.

“So the question,” Alis said, “is what do you and I do now? I don’t think we’ll be much help to the princess and the composer and Mery in whatever it is they’re doing.”

“I reckon we find Robert,” Neil said.

“And that is excellent thinking,” Alis agreed. “How do we do that?”

“Brinna might be able to tell us where he is.”

“Ah, Brinna.” Alis’ voice became more sultry. “Now there’s an interesting subject. You have acquaintances in very interesting places. How is it you two grew so fond of each other so quickly?” “Fond?”

“Oh, stop it. You don’t seem the woman conqueror on the face of it, but first Fastia, now the princess of Hansa who is also, ne’er you mind, one of the Faiths. That is quite a record.”

“I met her—we had met before,” Neil tried to explain.

“You said you had never been to Kaithbaurg before.”

“And I hadn’t. We met on a ship, in Vitellio. This isn’t the first time she’s run away from Hansa.” “I don’t blame her,” Alis said. “Why did she go back?”

“She said she had a vision of Anne bringing ruin to the whole world.”

“Well, she was wrong about that, at least.”

“I suppose.”

“Well, if Anne is dead…” She sighed and handed him the bottle. “She was supposed to save us, or so I thought before I quit caring. The Faiths told us that.”

“Your order?”

“Yes. The Order of Saint Dare. There’s no point in keeping it secret now.”

“Brinna said that she and the other Faiths had been wrong. That’s all I know.”

He took two drinks.

“Did you know Anne well?” Alis asked.

He took another pull. “I knew her. I wouldn’t say we were friends, exactly.”

“I barely knew her. I hardly knew Muriele until last year.”

“I don’t suppose mistresses and wives socialize that much.”

“No. But—” She closed her eyes. “Strong stuff.”

“Yes.”

“She helped me, Sir Neil. She took me in despite what I had been. I try not to love, because there’s nothing but heartbreak in it. But I loved her. I did.”

Her voice only barely quavered, but her face was wet in the moonlight.

“I know,” he said.

She sat that way a moment, staring at the bottle. Then she raised it. “To Robert,” she said. “He killed my king and lover, he killed my queen and friend. So to him, and his legs severed at the hip, and his arms cut from his shoulders, and all buried in different places—” She choked off into a sob.

He took the bottle. “To Robert,” he said, and drank.

The White Lady—Brinna, her name was—looked up from Leoff’s music. “Will this do it?” she asked. Leoff regarded the strange woman for a moment. He was tired, his head hurt, and what he mostly wanted was to go to bed.

“I don’t know,” he finally said.

“Yes, he does,” Mery said.

He shot the girl a warning glance, but she just smiled at him.

“You don’t trust me?” Brinna asked.

“Milady, I don’t know you. I’ve been deceived before—often. It’s been a very long day, and I’m finding it hard to understand why you’re here. We had another visitor, you know, pretending to be a relative of Mery’s, and you remind me a lot of her.”

“That was one of my sisters,” Brinna said. “She might have dissembled about who she was, but everything else she told you is true. Like me, she was a seer. Like me, she knew that if anyone can mend the law of death, it’s you two. I’ve come to help.”

“How can you help?”

“I don’t know, but I felt called here.”

“That’s not too useful,” Leoff said.

Brinna leaned forward a bit. “I broke the law of death,” she said quietly. “I am responsible. Do you understand?”

Leoff exhaled and pushed his hand through his hair, wincing as he touched the sore spot. “No,” he said. “I don’t really understand any of it.”

“It will work,” Mery insisted.

Leoff nodded. “I compose more with my heart than with my head, and my heart says it would work if it could be performed, which it can’t. That’s the problem, you see.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“You read music, yes?”

“Yes,” she said. “I can play the harp and lute. I can sing.”

“Then you notice that there are three voices, yes? The low, the middle, and the high.”

“Not unusual,” she said.

“No. Quite the norm. Except that if you look closely, you’ll see that there are two distinct lines in each voice.”

“I noticed that, too. But I’ve seen that before, too, in the Armaio of Roger Hlaivensen, for instance.” “Very good,” Leoff said. “But here’s the difference. The second lines—the one with the strokes turned down—those have to be sung by…ah, well—by the dead.”

When she didn’t even blink at that, he went on. “The upturned lines are to be sung by the living, and for the piece to be done properly, all the singers must be able to hear one another. I can’t imagine any way for that to happen.”

But Mery and Brinna were looking at each other, both with the same odd smile on their faces.

“That’s no problem, is it, Mery?” Brinna said.

“No,” the girl replied.

“How soon can we perform it?” Brinna asked.

“Wait,” Leoff said. “What are you two talking about?”

“The dead can hear us through Mery,” Brinna explained. “You can hear the dead through me. You see? I am the last piece of your puzzle. Now I know why I’m here.”

“Mery?” Leoff turned his gaze on the girl, who merely nodded.

“Fine,” he said, trying to resist the sudden dizzying hope. “If you say so.”

“How soon?”

“I can sing the middle part,” he said. “Areana can sing the upper. We need someone for the low.” “Edwyn Mylton,” Areana said.

“Of course,” Leoff said cautiously. “He could do it. If he’s still in Haundwarpen and if we could get to him.”

“Haundwarpen is under siege,” Areana explained.

“No,” Brinna said. “Haundwarpen is fallen. But that’s actually good for us.”

“How so?”

“My brother is a prince of Hansa. They won’t stop him entering or leaving the city, and they won’t ask him questions. Not yet.”

“A pri—” He stopped. “Then you’re a princess of Hansa?”

She nodded.

“Then I really don’t understand,” he said.

“My brother and I are here at our peril,” she said. “Understand, it doesn’t matter who wins the war. If the barrier between life and death deteriorates further, all of our empires will be dust.”

“What do you mean,” Areana asked, “at your peril?”

“My brother tried to help your queen, and I am run away,” she said. “If we’re caught, we may well both be executed. That’s why we need to move quickly. At the moment, the army here recognizes my brother as their prince. But word from my father will reach here very soon, and we will be found, so all must go quickly.”

We’ll do the piece, his thoughts rushed. We’ll cure Mery.

He clung to that thought and shied from the next: Brinna was prepared to die, perhaps expected it, perhaps had seen it. That did not bode well for the rest of them.

“Well,” he said, “we’d best find Mylton, then, and get on with this.”

8 Reunions Strange and Natural

“What now, sir?” Jan asked Cazio. Cazio stared at the freshly turned earth and took a few deep breaths. The morning smelled clean despite the carnage.

“I don’t know,” he said. If Anne’s Sefry guards were traitors, Mother Uun probably was, too. If he took Austra to her, they might be walking right into the spider’s web.

But what else was there to do? Only in Eslen was he likely to find anyone who could help Austra. “I’m still going on to Eslen,” he said. “Nothing’s changed about that.”

“I reckon we’ll be going with you, then,” the soldier said. “The empire is a month behind on our salary, and we’ve worked hard enough for it.”

Cazio shook his head. “From what I hear, you’ll only walk into slaughter. Go back and keep the duchess safe. I know she’ll pay you.”

“Can’t let you walk into slaughter alone,” the soldier replied.

“I won’t get in by fighting,” Cazio said, “with or without your help. I’ll have to use my wits somehow.” “That’s a bloody shame,” Jan said. “You’re bound to come to a bad end that way.”

“Thanks for the confidence,” Cazio replied. “I think it’s for the best. You fellows will just draw a fight we can’t win. The two of us might be able to slip in the back way.”

Jan held his gaze for a moment, then nodded and stuck out his hand. Cazio took it.

“The Cassro was a good man,” the soldier said.

“He was,” Cazio agreed.

“He raised a good man, too.”

They broke camp a bell later. The soldiers headed back to Glenchest, and Cazio and Austra were alone again.

It was along about midday that Cazio felt a strange, hot wind carrying an acrid scent he had smelled before, deep in the tunnels below Eslen. He drew Acredo and turned on the board, searching. There wasn’t much to see; the road was bounded on both sides by hedges and had been for nearly a league. Until now he’d been enjoying the change from open landscape; he could almost pretend he was back in Vitellio, taking a tour of one of the grand trivii with z’Acatto, working up an appetite for pigeon with white beans and garlic and a thirst for a light vino verio.

Now he suddenly felt claustrophobic. The last time he’d come this way, it had been with an army, and they hadn’t much feared bandits; now he realized this would be a perfect place for them to hide, say, just around one of these bends, and wondered if he hadn’t dismissed Jan and the others too quickly. Of course, that had nothing to do with what he had smelled, which he was beginning to think was an illusion, anyway, just a stray memory of one of the many horrible things he had experienced in the last two years or so.

He kept Acredo in hand as they went around the curve.

There was someone there, all right. It wasn’t a bandit.

“Fratir Stephen?” He drew back on the reins and brought the carriage to a halt.

“Casnar!” Stephen replied. “You’re a coachman now.”

Cazio was momentarily at a loss for words. He didn’t know the fellow well, but he did know him, and the odds seemed against a chance meeting. And there was that other thing…

“Everyone thinks you’re dead, you know,” he said.

“I expect so,” Stephen replied. “The slinders did make off with me. But here I am, fit and well.” He did look well, Cazio thought, not dead at all. Although there was something about the way he spoke and carried himself that seemed very different.

“Well,” he said for lack of something better, “I’m glad you’re well. Did Aspar and Winna find you?” “Were they trying?”

“Yes. They went after you. That was the last I saw or heard of them.”

Stephen nodded, and his eyebrows pinched together for an instant. Then he smiled again.

“It’s good to have friends,” he said. “Where are you off to, Cazio?”

“Eslen,” he said, feeling guarded. The whole encounter seemed stranger every moment.

“You’re looking for help for Austra.”

Cazio shifted Acredo to a better grip. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“What are you talking about? You know me.”

“I knew Fratir Stephen. I’m not sure that’s who you are.”

“Oh, it’s me more or less,” the man said. “But like you, I’ve been through a lot. Walked a new faneway, gained new gifts. So yes, things are revealed to me that are denied most. I can put my gaze far from me. But I’m not an espetureno or estrigo if that’s your fear.”

“But you aren’t here by coincidence.”

“No, I’m not.”

“What do you want, then?”

“To help you. To help Austra now and Anne later on.”

“Anne?” Cazio said. “How can you know where to find me and not know?”

“Know what?”

“Anne is dead.”

Stephen’s eyes widened with what appeared to be genuine disbelief, and for the first time his new cockiness seemed to fail him.

“How is that possible?” he said, speaking so low that Cazio could barely hear him. “There’s something going on here I’m missing. But if Anne is dead…”

He raised his voice. “We’ll sort that out later. Cazio, I can help Austra. But you have to come with me.” “Come with you?”

“Get her,” Stephen said. “Him, too.”

Cazio jerked his head around to see who the fratir was talking to, but all he saw was a weird wavering, like the air above hot stones. Then something wrapped itself firmly around his waist and lifted him into the air. He shrieked involuntarily and stabbed his blade into the invisible thing, but then something grabbed Acredo and wrenched the blade from his grasp.

Then they were hurtling through the air, all three of them, born by the Kept, and there was nothing Cazio could do about it but curse and imagine what he was going to do to Stephen when he could get to him.

After a while, Cazio finally had to give in to the fact that he was enjoying himself, at least a little. He had wondered often what it might be like to fly, and once the initial terror had worn off, it was exciting. They were whisked over the poelen and canals, covering in a bell what would have taken him days in the carriage. Eslen appeared in the distance, a toy castle far below them.

“Hubris,” Stephen said. “It’s always the death of me. But I can’t turn my eye in every direction at once, can I? Especially with the others interfering.”

“What are you talking about?”

They plunged suddenly not toward Eslen but toward the dark necropolis south of it.

“But he doesn’t know about Austra,” Stephen went on. “That’ll be his undoing. He killed Anne for her power and didn’t find it because it all went to Austra. She walked the same faneway as Anne—after her. I would have known that if I had thought about it for six breaths.”

Cazio tried to catch that thought. Austra did seem to have some of the same gifts as Anne. And the churchman—had he known somehow? Was his strange cutting of her connected to that? And did that have anything to do with what was wrong with Austra?

It had to, didn’t it?

“See,” Stephen whispered. “Hespero moves.”

Cazio’s attention was suddenly drawn to the several hundreds of men fighting in front of the gates of Eslen-of-Shadows, but he only had a glimpse of that before they rushed down into the city itself, over the lead streets and into a mausoleum as large as some mansions. The Kept settled them in front of it. The two guards at the door started toward him, but then their eyes glazed over, and they sat down rather suddenly.

Cazio suddenly found himself free. He started toward Stephen.

“Don’t,” Stephen said. “If you want Austra alive and well, don’t.”

With that he swung open the doors.

Inside, on a large table, lay Anne. She was dressed in a black satin gown set with pearls, placed with her hands folded across her chest. Two women—one very young, the other a Sefry—and a man Cazio did not recognize were sitting with the body. The man stood as they entered and drew a broadsword. “I need my blade,” Cazio told Stephen.

“Pick it up, then,” Stephen said.

Cazio turned and found it lying on the ground. Austra was still in the Kept’s invisible grip.

“By the saints, what is this?” the man shouted. “Demons!”

Stephen held up his hand. “Wait,” he said. “There’s no need for that.”

This wasn’t what he had expected. This was where he had sensed the throne, not Anne, although it made perfect sense that she was down here, too.

He could feel the sedos force pulsing just where she was.

“How did she die?” he asked, a suspicion suddenly born in his mind.

“Stabbed,” the girl said, her eyes red from crying. “The Fratrex Prismo murdered her. There was so much blood…”

“Stabbed where?”

“Under the ribs, up into her heart,” the Sefry woman said. “Then her throat was cut.”

Stephen stepped forward.

“No, by the saints,” the man shouted. “Who are you?”

Stephen silenced him as he had the guards. It wouldn’t hurt him permanently, but his thoughts would be too disordered to allow him to, say, move his limbs.

He saw the line where Anne’s throat had been cut, but it was puckered and white.

Stephen felt a sort of coldness ringing in his ears.

It was a scar.

“Oh, screaming damned saints,” Stephen sighed.

Austra gave a sudden gasp behind him, and he felt a tremendous surge around him as the throne exploded into being.

And the throne, Anne Dare rose up, shining with unnatural light, her face so beautiful and terrible that Stephen couldn’t look on it.

It was the face from his Black Marys.

“Hespero,” she whispered, and then, at the top of her lungs, screamed the name.

She didn’t even glance at him, or Cazio, or any other person in the room.

“Qexqaneh,” she said, and Stephen suddenly felt his control of the Vhelny utterly dissolve and heard the demon laughter in his ears. All the hair on his body suddenly stood up, and then Anne was in the demon’s grip, flying, gone out of the crypt and into the darkling sky.

Aspar still could feel the geos in him when they entered the high valley where he first had seen the Briar King. He reckoned that meant Winna wasn’t there yet.

Maybe Leshya wasn’t bringing her there at all.

Sir Roger and his men were there, however, camped and entrenched around what appeared to be a lodge of some sort, though Aspar knew it had been formed from living trees. He’d been in it; it was where he had found the Briar King sleeping.

“I count seventeen,” Fend said. “Four of them Mamres knights.”

Aspar nodded. “That’s what I see.”

“I don’t see your three friends.”

“No.”

“Always the conversationalist,” Fend said. “Well, let’s get this over with.”

“We’re not in a hurry,” Aspar said. “You just pointed out that Winna isn’t here yet. Why should we charge down to their defended positions?”

“You have a plan, then?”

“What happened to your basil-nix?”

“They’re really quite fragile creatures once you get past their gaze. That’s why I used it from a distance. Harriot’s troops figured out what it was and poured arrows on it.”

Aspar nodded.

“Was that your plan, to use the nix?”

“If we had it, sure.”

“What now, then?”

For answer, Aspar studied the distance and the play of the almost nonexistent breeze on the grass. Then he set a shaft to string and let it loose.

One of the churchmen pitched back, grasping at the arrow in his throat.

“Buggering saints!” Fend swore. “You’ve still got the eye, Aspar.”

“Now there are sixteen,” he said as the men below scrambled for cover behind the crude barriers they had erected.

“When they get tired of this,” Aspar said, “they’ll come up after us, fight on our ground. If Winna shows up before we’re finished, we can always make your mad charge.”

“We can’t take too long. The beasts will get hungry.”

“Send one or two down to hunt when it gets dark.”

“I like the way your mind works, Aspar,” Fend said.

We’ll soon change that, Aspar thought.

Fend sent an utin down that night. It didn’t come back, but the next morning Aspar counted two fewer men below. The Mamres monks were all still there, though, so it wasn’t as good a trade as might have been hoped for. Aspar watched through the day from the cover of the trees, looking for another opportunity to skewer someone, but the knight was being very cautious now.

Toward sundown, he felt it all starting to catch up with him and found himself almost dozing, his eyes unwilling to keep open.

He’d just closed them for a moment when he felt an odd turning. He looked down to see what was going on and realized that two of the Mamres monks and three mounted men were racing across the field toward the other entrance to the valley.

“They’re here!” Aspar shouted. He stood, took aim, and let go. One of the horsemen pitched off. Something went streaking by him. He saw it was Fend on the wairwulf. The remaining utin loped along behind him.

Aspar fired again, missing a Mamres monk, but his third arrow found its mark in the man’s leg, and he went rolling down. He had one more shot before they were out of range, and that hit another horseman. Grim, let Fend and his be enough, he thought. But Winna had Leshya and Ehawk, too.

The other nine men were charging up the hill. Seven knights and two Mamres monks against him, the Vaix, and a greffyn.

Aspar gritted his teeth and drew the cord, wishing he had more than five arrows left. But if wishes weighed anything, he’d have a heavy pack right now.

The first one hit a knight and skipped off his armor, but the second one punched right through his breastplate, and now they were eight.

From the corner of his eye he saw the greffyn bounding down the hill. Three of the knights turned their lances against it. The Mamres monks came on, dodging his next two arrows, but then the strange Sefry met them with his glistering feysword, and things went too quickly for him to follow even if he had had time to, which he didn’t, because three armored mounted men were coming up on him fast.

Aspar shot his last arrow from four kingsyards away at the knight on his far left, and it went through the fellow’s armor as if it were cambric. He dropped his spear and slumped forward, and Aspar let fall the bow and ran as hard and fast as he could, putting the now masterless horse between himself and the other two mounted men. He grasped the spear as one of his pursuers dropped his lance, drew sword, and wheeled to meet the holter.

Aspar caught him in midturn, ramming the sharp point into the armpit joint. The fellow hollered and went windmilling off his horse. The other fellow had ridden out a little farther and was turning for a proper charge. Aspar just then recognized that it was Harriot himself.

Aspar grasped for the reins of the horse, but it galloped off, leaving him no mount or cover.

The fellow he had just knocked off was moving feebly, but it looked like it would take him a bit to get up, if he did at all.

Aspar reminded himself that most men on foot killed by knights died with holes in the back of the skull, and it was a good thing, because his legs were telling him to run as Harriot’s charger hurtled at him. Grimly, he set the butt of the lance on his foot, pointed the spear tip at the horse’s breast, and braced for the impact.

Harriot shifted his grip and threw the lance, turning his mount an instant later. It thunked into the earth two handsbreadths from Aspar. Aspar wheeled, keeping the spear ready for the next pass.

The knight drew his sword, dismounted, took down a shield, and came on.

That’s smart, Aspar thought. All he needs to do is get past my point, and I’m no real spearman. He caught a blur at the edge of his vision and saw it was one of the Mamres monks.

Well, good try, he thought.

But suddenly the greffyn was there, too, barreling at the monk from his right. They went off in a tangle. Harriot charged during the distraction.

Aspar thrust the spear into the shield so hard that it stuck and then ran to the side, turning the fellow half around before he let go of the shaft and drew his ax and dirk. Put off balance by the unwieldy weapon lodged in his shield and by Aspar’s maneuver, the knight had to fight to get his sword arm back around. He didn’t make it before Aspar smashed into the shield at waist level so that Harriot went back and down, landing with a muffled clang.

Aspar hit his helmet with the blunt side of his ax, and it rang like a bell. He hit it again, then shoved it up to reveal the white throat underneath and finished the job with his dirk.

He stood, panting.

The Vaix was just picking himself up a little farther down the hill.

The greffyn was bloodying its beak in the stomach of the Mamres knight.

Far below, he saw Fend and the wairwulf approaching Winna, Leshya, and Ehawk.

Please let me be right about this, Aspar said, but then he had no more time for doubt as the Vaix started for him.

Aspar did what he had planned, the only thing he could do.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him toward his mount. A glance back showed the Sefry gaining even with his wounded leg, even with new blood showing all over him.

He made it to the horse, swung up, and kicked it into motion. The Sefry gave a hoarse cry and leaped at them, landing on his bad leg, which buckled. He threw the feysword at Aspar. It went turning by his head and cut through a young pine tree.

Then the yards were growing between them, and each glance back showed the Vaix farther behind, then gone.

Aspar didn’t stop or even slow until after nightfall, when he reckoned he was at least a league and a half away.

9 The Hiding Place

When the pain of the knife wound faded and she ceased to feel her body, Anne for some time knew nothing but confusion and the sudden pull of a current so compelling that she had no thought of resistance. She let it take her, knowing what it was, having seen the lives of men leak away into its dark waters.

For an instant she thought she was ready, but then from the very center of her climbed dark, delicious, corrupt rage. It informed everything that remained of her as she sought to strike out through the ragged wall of death at her killer, but here she learned the obvious but unspoken truth: Without a body in the lands of fate, no desire of her will could she obtain.

That was death. That was why the promise of her had forged an alliance with those who had gone before, to give all that rage and purpose, at last, a body again.

Now all that was failed and moot, and the chance would not come again.

She felt herself diminishing, melting, and knew that in time the very place she observed herself from would vanish. It wasn’t fair; this was her domain, her kingdom. She had nearly had complete control of it, and now it was eating her. What it spit out would invade the dreams of another, be used by another—probably Hespero.

She caught the strains of a song, and as she focused her attention on it, it began to swell, and her throat yearned to open and join its strange harmonies.

For some reason that frightened her more than anything.

She suddenly saw light in the water and heard a familiar voice speak as if from another room. Then something caught her and pulled her in, and her thoughts suddenly became a confusion of voices, as in her Black Marys. At first she thought that it was the end, that she was merging with the river, but then she understood that she was thinking in only two voices.

Then a place shaped, and a face.

It took her a moment.

“Austra?”

“It’s me, Anne,” her friend said. “You’ve been here a while, but you didn’t seem to hear me.”

“Where are we?”

The light came up a little, diffuse strands of it made spidery by the tiny root filaments around the edge of the hole above her. She saw a little more of Austra now and noticed that between them was a stone crypt.

“It’s the crypt,” she murmured. “The one we found as girls. Virgenya’s crypt.”

“Is it?” Austra asked, sounding confused. “It looks to me like the womb of Mefitis, where we escaped the men who attacked the coven. See, there’s light coming down the shaft.”

Anne felt a prickling. She reached across the tomb.

“Take my hand, Austra.”

The other stretched out her arm, but instead of the familiar grip of her friend’s fingers, Anne felt not even the substance of a cobweb.

Austra nodded. “I tried to shake you awake earlier.”

“Austra, what were you doing just before you found yourself here?”

“I was with Cazio,” she said. “I had been hurt, and there was a battle. I was trying to go to sleep, when suddenly it felt as if something ripped me open.” She looked up. “We’re dead, aren’t we?”

“I should be,” Anne said. “Hespero—he stabbed me, in the heart, I think.” She tried to touch the spot where the knife had gone in and found it as intangible as Austra. “But you were just trying to sleep. And why are we here?”

“Is this the same place we went that time we were trapped in the horz? The otherworld of the Faiths?” “I don’t think so, or at least not exactly. If that were true, I think Hespero—or the other—could find me. I think we’re trapped somewhere, or maybe…” She drifted off, silenced by a sudden revelation.

“Austra, you walked the same faneway I did.”

“I thought of that,” Austra said. “There was a priest, doing things to me, and I—”

“I remember,” Anne said. “I was there. I was looking for you.”

“Saints,” Austra breathed. “You were there. I’d forgotten. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Anne said. “Maybe I’m dead, but a little of me is living on in you for a while. Maybe all of my power passed to you and it was too much for you. I’m sorry, Austra.”

“Why did you send me away?” the girl asked.

“I saw you and Cazio dead if I kept you around me.” The image flashed through her mind, and she suddenly recognized it. “Saints,” she said. “You would have died, both of you, in the Red Hall, protecting me from Hespero. And you would have…”

“I thought it was because you didn’t want us around to remind you of who you are.”

“There’s that, too,” Anne said. “I have found new parts of me, Austra, furious ones. They are quiet now, because I’m here with you. I needed room for them to grow, to become strong. It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“I don’t want to be dead,” Austra said. And more softly: “Cazio asked me to marry him.”

“Really?” Jealousy was quick venom.

“I know you love him, too.”

Anne didn’t answer for a moment. “You’re right,” she said. “Or at least I’m in love with the idea of him. It’s part of the notion that I can do anything I want.” She thought about telling Austra about Tam—had she ever called him that?—but she refrained. “Anyway, congratulations.”

“I love you, Anne,” Austra said. “More than anyone.”

“I love you, too,” Anne said. Without thinking, she reached for her friend again. This time their fingers touched. Austra’s eyes widened. The room filled with white-hot flame.

“Hespero,” Anne snarled, and became.

All the rage was there, waiting for her, welcoming her back into her poor abused—and nearly completely healed—body.

She reached out around her, looking for the praifec, brushing aside something near, a heavy, familiar presence that suddenly shrank away.

Then she saw the Kept, floating there, waiting for her.

At your service, great queen, the demon said. I am here for you.

“You promised to heal the law of death and die.”

And so I shall, with your help, Qexqaneh replied. But you have things to do first.

“Yes,” Anne snarled. “Yes, I do.”

And the Kept took her up in his coils, and they went to Hespero’s army.

Edwyn Mylton was graying, long-limbed, and awkward, but he had the eyes of a child with an active imagination and plans his parents wouldn’t approve of.

“What sort of trouble are you getting me into this time, Leoff?” he asked.

“You won’t believe it, I think,” Leoff said, “and it is exceedingly dangerous. But I have to ask you. There’s no one else I can think of.”

Edwyn peered down his uneven nose for a moment. “I suppose I had better agree, then, before I know the details.” He nodded at Areana. “Frauye Leovigild, it’s wonderful to see you again.”

“I wish it were as happy as the last occasion,” she replied.

“Yes, well, the company is still good,” he said. “Most of it.” He nodded significantly toward the door. “Berimund and his men are our friends,” Leoff said. “Or at least we share some goals. We can trust them, I think.”

“I trust your judgment, Leoff, but they were a little rough in collecting me.”

“I’m sorry, old friend; that was a pretense to satisfy any curious Hansans watching.”

“Yes, so they explained, but I had a bit of trouble believing it until now. So what are we doing, then?” “We’re going to sing with the dead,” Leoff replied. Despite all his worries, he still managed to enjoy the expression on Edwyn’s face.

Brinna handed Neil a small vial containing a greenish elixir.

“This should help,” she said. “It’s something I concocted from an old herbal, long ago, at my brother’s request. He’s hard on the drink.”

Neil hesitated at the scent.

“What? Do you fear I would poison you? Or are you afraid it’s a love philter?”

The elixir was as astringent and as strong as the drink he’d shared with Alis, but it did make him feel better. He’d been foolish; he might have to fight today. He should be at his best, even if that wasn’t very good.

“Will this work?” he asked. “This thing you’re going to do?”

She parted her hands. “I can’t see that, if that’s what you mean. But it might. That’s something to hope on. But you and my brother, you must keep us safe until we are done. Then, whatever happens, we must find each other. I do not want to die without you.”

“I don’t want you to die at all,” Neil said.

She placed her hand on his. “If we survive, Sir Neil, will you take me away?”

“Wherever you want.”

“Someplace where neither of us has any duties,” she said. “That’s what I would like.”

He gripped her fingers in his. Then he leaned toward her until her eyes were very close.

She bent her head, and their lips touched, and all he wanted was to take her away right then and there, forget the war, the law of death, everything. Didn’t they deserve…

She touched his cheek, and he saw that she understood what he was thinking, and she turned her head just slightly from side to side. Then she got up and gently untangled her fingers from his.

“Remember your promise,” she said. “Find me if I do not find you.”

“How will we know when you’ve finished?”

“Somehow, I think you will know,” she replied.

Marché Hespero drew on the faneway of Diuvo and made himself small in the eyes of the sky and of men.

The fighting had ceased at nightfall, at his order. Although his body was warded against steel, there were some things that might do him harm; the blow of a lance or mace, though it would not cut his skin, might well break bones and organs through the skin. And a splintered lance, a broken arrow—he frankly wasn’t certain what they might do. During an open melee, any of those things might find him by sheerest accident even though no eye saw him.

He slipped through the lines of his men, past their fires and amid their grumbling. The enemy had withdrawn into Eslen-of-Shadows and crouched behind a low wall that had never been meant to serve as a fortification. Still, they had managed to hold it passably well. Crotheny might have lost its witch-queen and her ability to slay thousands with a wish, but if anything, the leadership of the army had improved. He slipped over the barrier and wove through the alert front ranks, back through where men were sleeping, into the houses of the dead.

He knew his knights were questioning an attack that was not only sacrilegious and unprecedented but to their minds nonsensical. The only approaches to the castle from the shadow city were steep and fully exposed to anything the guards on the city walls might want to launch or drop on them for hundreds of kingsyards.

What he wanted, of course, was control of the throne, which finally had shown itself a few days after he had killed Anne.

He hadn’t intended things to be this messy; he’d intended to seize control of Anne’s gifts as he had the former Fratrex Prismo’s. Her power married with his own would have made it easy enough to slay any who opposed him in Eslen and let his army walk in.

Instead, he had to make do with talents he already possessed, at least until he appropriated the sedos throne and then took control of the others. That shouldn’t be so hard, with the Vhen throne empty and measures taken to keep it so. When he had both of those, he would find the keeper of the Xhes and dispense with him.

He had hoped to have Eslen-of-Shadows pacified to make the task of winning the throne easier, but he felt the power swelling toward the proscribed moment, and he also sensed the other foe he had dreamed about so long ago. He had no way of knowing who was stronger at this point, but he had taken plenty of risks, and this one last gamble for the greatest prize was surely worth it.

He was nearing the tomb itself when a soundless explosion of red-gold light came pouring from the door frame. He shrank against a cold marble wall, gathering his will to hide himself as completely as he could yet also ready for battle.

Something came flying out of the opening, a dark cloud, and a woman, glowing…

He blinked. It was Anne. It was the throne.

She was the throne. She was what he had come to claim. But how—

Anne was the flashing heart of a thunderhead, moving out over his men, bolts of blue-white lightning arcing out from her to the waiting earth, replacing silence with ear-aching thunder. He watched, frozen for the moment, as knights and soldiers and Mamres monks all perished alike, as Anne Dare—the Born Queen—only shone brighter and brighter.

His vision had started like this. Had he failed? Was there any chance to stop her now?

The Black Jester. If he could take his strength, add it to his own…

“Hespero!” a voice called over the din.

He jerked around and saw, to his great surprise, Stephen Darige.

“Brother?”

“Nice trick,” Stephen said. “Good for sneaking about. Too bad you were distracted.”

And with those words, their battle began.

10 Basics

The candles all flickered when Brinna touched her fingers to the hammarharp, and the small room filled with the sound. Leoff waited, almost forgetting to breathe.

There it came, Mery whispering a note and then, suddenly, the same tone issuing, clear and perfect, from the mysterious woman at the keys. It shivered up his spine to know that she was hearing the sound itself, not in this world but in the other. He wished with all his being that he could hear what Brinna and Mery did. He knew it in his mind, of course, but his ears hungered for it, too.

Now Areana joined in with the quick line, starting low but climbing higher separately from the first theme, never touching it, as if two deaf musicians were playing side by side, each unaware of the other. The melodies wandered like that for a while, tightening but still separate until, in a moment that shocked him even though he knew it was coming, they were suddenly in unison for three notes. It sent a thrill of pure terror through him, and he suddenly very much did not want to go through with this.

But now it was his turn to sing. He prayed he was up to the task.

In the house, a hammarharp sounded a single chord, and then a voice lifted in one high, clear note. Neil was startled; it reminded him of frightening a covey of quail along the side of the road. What was more surprising, that surprise or the startlement itself?

Because it was Brinna, and the depth of that single beautiful note opened a door on everything he still didn’t know about her, everything he wanted to learn. He knew she played the harp, and beautifully, and he loved her voice, but he never knew this was hidden in it.

The note dropped and wavered, and a second voice joined it, another woman: the composer’s wife. The song suddenly wasn’t pretty anymore, and Neil remembered a time not so long ago when he’d been sinking in the sea, dragged down by the weight of his armor, and he’d heard the Draugs’ lonely, jealous song, welcoming him to the cold land of Breu-nt-Toine, a country without love or light or even memory. In this music—in Brinna’s voice—he heard again the song of the Draugs.

He walked away from the house not so much because the music repelled him as because he was drawn to it, just as his armor had dragged him toward the sea floor.

But then another memory came.

He’d been seven, in the hills, gathering the goats. Goat gathering wasn’t such a hard business, and he’d been doing some of the work on his back, watching the clouds, imagining they were islands filled with strange kingdoms and peoples, wondering if he could ever find a way up to them.

Then he’d heard the horns blowing and knew the fleet was in. He jumped up, leaving the goats to themselves, and rushed down the hill trail, racing along with the sea down below, until ahead he could see his father’s longship with its broad blue sail and prow carved in the likeness of Saint Menenn’s horse Enverreu.

By the time he reached the docks, the ships was tied up. His father already was back on dry land and opening his arms to sweep his son up in rough arms.

“Fah,” he shouted. The sun that day had shown a kind of gold that Neil had never seen since, although he had watched for it and had seen something of its hue that day when he had fought for the waerd. And right there on the wooden planks, in front of all his comrades, his father pulled from his things something long, wrapped in oiled cloth, its head stockinged in sealskin.

He pulled off the cloth and sock in a hurry, and there it was, his first spear, with its beautiful shiny blade and plain thick pole.

“I had it made by Saint Jeveneu himself,” his father said, but at Neil’s amazed expression, he mussed his head and corrected himself.

“It was made by an old friend of mine on the isle of Guel,” he said. “No saint but a good man and a good smith, and he made it special for you.”

Neil had never been so proud of anything as that spearhead flashing in the sun and his father’s hand on his shoulder.

When they got home, it was a different story. His mother embraced his father and had begun bringing out the supper when she suddenly looked at Neil.

“And what of the goats, Neil? Did you just leave them up there when I told you to bring them in?” “I’m sorry, Mah,” he remembered saying. “I heard the bells—”

“And wanted to see your Fah, sure, but—”

“But you don’t abandon your duty, son. Now go get them.”

He got them and missed supper in the bargain, but when he finally made it down and the first stars were out, he found his father waiting for him outside the house.

“I’m sorry, Fah,” he said.

“Now listen,” his father said. “You’re going to get older, we all hope, so let me tell you something. You’ve heard me talk about honor. Do you know what it is?”

“It’s what a warrior gets when he wins battles.”

“No. A man can never fight a battle and still have honor. A man can win a thousand and never have any. You’ll hear all sorts of things in the future about what honor is; some, I’m told, in the courts of the mainland have written down all sorts of things a man must do to have it. But it’s simple, really. Honor is about doing the things you know you ought to. Not the thing you think will win approval, not the most dangerous thing, not the thing that will win you the most glory, but the thing you know you ought. What was there more important today than doing what your mother asked and bringing in the goats?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“And I wanted to see you, lad. But you lost honor doing so. You understand?”

“Yes, Fah. But that’s hard, isn’t it? How do you know what you ought to do?”

“You have to know yourself,” his father said. “And you have to listen to your own true voice. Now, go get your spear, and I’ll show you the proper way to hold it.”

That had been long years ago, and not long after that he’d first used that spear. He’d broken it two winters later. It was years after, when his father was dead and he was with Sir Fail, that he learned the sword and shield and lance, wore lord’s plate, and took on the trappings of a knight and the code of honor that went with it.

Alis was up talking to Berimund, whose men waited in silent formation, facing the gate. Neil went to join them.

“Excuse me, Prince,” he said. “I was wondering if you had a spear or two I might borrow from you.” “You may have mine,” the prince replied. “And a spare if you want it.”

“Thank you,” Neil replied. Berimund fetched the weapons: good, well-balanced man killers.

“Sir Neil,” Berimund said as he examined the weapons. “We’ve reports of a force gathering up the road, about twice our number.”

“Do you know why?”

“No, but I can guess that a messenger from Hansa has finally spread the news that my father has called for my head.”

“We need only hold them for the space of another bell, at most,” Alis said.

Berimund closed his eyes, perhaps listening to the music, perhaps to something in his own skull. “No,” he said. “We needn’t hold them at all.”

“What do you mean?” Neil asked.

“I won’t let them come at me as they like,” the prince said. “My wulfbrothars and I will go and meet them where they’re gathering. Even if we lose, they’ll have no reason to come here directly.”

“They might, in search of Brinna.”

“My men have spread the rumor that we put her on a ship at Saestath. Even if some doubt that, it will take time for them to be certain all of us are defeated; they wouldn’t leave us at their backs.” He grinned. “Or maybe they will choose their prince over their king. I was well received here until now.”

“I can’t go with you,” Neil said.

“Of course not. I’ll leave two men outside the gate, but you stay here. What is that knife you people carry—the little one, the blade of last resort?”

“The echein doif.”

“Jah. You will be the echein doif, Sir Neil.”

Neil watched them mount and ride through the gate. Then he stripped off the hauberk and laid it on the ground, flexing his shoulders under the light padded gambeson. He unbuckled his sword belt and carefully put the weapon next to the armor.

The night deepened, and behind him the music darkened and lightened weirdly, like the sun coming in and out of the clouds.

“There,” Alis said.

Neil nodded, for he saw the shadows, too, padding through the gate on foot. Robert’s guards hadn’t made a sound.

“Remember our toast,” Alis said.

“I remember,” Neil replied.

Stephen was struck by a sudden impulse simply to close his eyes and sleep, and he almost laughed. Hespero didn’t know who he was dealing with.

“Again,” he said. “Nice try.”

“We could be allies,” Hespero said. “We could stop her together.”

“I agree,” Stephen replied, fending off another stab of Hespero’s will. “Individually, neither of us has a chance against her, and we both know what that means. Surrender your gifts to me, and I’ll stop her.” “We could work together.”

“You’re trying to kill me even now.” Stephen laughed. “It’s impossible. One of us would inherit from her, and the other would perish.”

“Brother Stephen, I am your Fratrex Prismo. You owe everything in you to me.”

“Now, that’s just silly,” Stephen said. “You won your position through lies, murder, and betrayal, and now you’re asking for my loyalty? Would you like me to lie down and let you piss on me, too?”

“You aren’t Stephen Darige,” the fratrex said.

Stephen chuckled, then reached out with his full might. “You’re going to wish you were wrong about that,” he said.

Hespero reached back, and the lands of fate shrank away, and Stephen was holding Hespero, a waurm, Winna, Zemlé, himself…

It was the same fight all over again, the fight to keep himself whole as he had on the faneway, except before he had had Kauron’s help. This time he was Kauron, the Jester, the Black Heart of Terror. Which meant he was alone.

Still, Hespero’s gifts seemed made to be broken by his. Until, that is, lightning ripped them apart and sent Stephen sprawling, his muscles pulled into balls like snails trying to retreat into their shells, pain shattering his concentration. He knew that somehow, against the odds, Hespero had won.

But he hadn’t, Stephen realized as he opened his eyes and found Anne standing there, shimmering as if he were gazing at her through the heat of an oven.

“What have we here?” she asked.

It wasn’t easy, but Stephen ignored her as best he could, because to stand a chance he needed Hespero’s gifts and needed them now. The fratrex was unconscious, and that made it easier. He drank greedily from the well that was Hespero.

“I know you,” Anne said, wagging her finger at him.

“You threatened me in the place of the Faiths. Not in that skin, but it was you.”

A barrier of some sort suddenly snapped down between him and the churchman.

“Stop that,” Anne said. “Listen to me when I’m talking to you.”

Stephen backed away, trying to reestablish his connection with Hespero and finish the job, but the Fratrex Prismo might as well have been a thousand leagues away.

He looked at Anne and laughed.

“You think it’s funny?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper in its fury.

“That was me,” he said, “but I didn’t know. Dreams, you see? It was all in my dreams. Except in my dreams it was you terrifying me, when I believed I was only Stephen Darige. In your dreams it was me terrifying you, when you believed you were only Anne.”

He rose up from his knees. “And now we are both almost who we were in our dreams. And I’ll say now as I did then: We should join together, you and I, bright king and dark queen. Don’t you see? We’re male and female principle of the same thing. Nothing could stand against us.”

Anne just stared at him for a long moment, those awful eyes slitted to hint at the mind whirling behind them.

“You’re right,” she said. “I see it now. I understand. But you know what? I don’t need you. Nothing can stand against me as it is.”

When Aspar was sure he wasn’t being followed, he bound his wounds and slept for a few bells in the crook of a tree. Then he started back to the valley.

He reached it just before dawn and waited until there was enough light to see who, if anyone, was still there.

He made out a still figure in the grass about fifty yards ahead of him.

Closer, he saw it was Leshya, lying propped against a stone. Her head turned slowly as he approached. “Another bell,” she coughed, “and you wouldn’t have seen me at all.”

She glanced down and he saw that she was holding her bowels in.

“Doesn’t really hurt anymore,” she said.

He dismounted and pulled out his knife. He pulled off his broon and shirt and began cutting the shirt into wide strips.

“No point in that,” Leshya said.

“There might be,” Aspar said. “I know something Fend doesn’t know, something you don’t know, something only I and the Briar King know.”

The slit down her belly was fairly neat. Fend’s work, for sure.

“He wanted me to tell you he’ll find you,” she said. “Said he never imagined you could be such a coward.”

“Werlic,” Aspar replied. “He went in the Vhenkherdh, but he hasn’t come out, has he?”

“No.”

“Did he leave anyone to guard?”

“One fellow, hidden just in the entrance. I see him now and then. He’s careless.”

He handed her his water. “Drink it all,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Aspar—”

“Hush. Don’t die.”

And with that he went softly through the grass, coming around behind the strange growth of trees. He edged around until he saw the man there and recognized with relief that it wasn’t the Vaix. He closed his eyes, trying to remember, back through a haze of fever and time. Trying to be sure. He stepped around. The man looked up.

The passage into the Vhenkherdh wasn’t covered with a door or any such thing. It was just a twisty little path back through the trees.

The man shouted at the top of his lungs, grabbed the hilt of his sword, and started to stand.

Aspar’s ax hit him between the eyes. He sat back down.

Aspar went back and got Leshya. She still was breathing, and her eyes opened again when she saw him. “Done?”

“Not by half,” he said. “Come along now.”

He took her arrows and put them in his quiver, then carried her to the Vhenkherdh.

“Now, listen,” he said. “I need you to crawl on your belly until you’re in there, do you hear?” “I don’t understand.”

“When I went in before, it was just for a few moments. For Winna, out here, it was three days. Do you see?”

“I’ve lost most of my blood,” she said. “It’s hard to think.”

“Yah. Can you crawl?”

“It’s stupid, but yes.”

“Just do it,” he said. “It’ll hurt; I’m sorry. But I have to see something. It will help me, werlic?” He tried not to think about what she was feeling as she drew up onto her elbows and inched into the place. He followed a step behind her, wishing he could help, knowing it had to be this way.

The color of the faint light on her faded, and then she was gone.

He moved up to just that point and drew his hood to cut out any other light, and he saw her again, a bloody shadow.

Beyond Leshya he could make out a few vague shapes, all the dark red ghosts, all apparently immobile. He watched, knowing he had to make the right choices, glad he had a little time.

The Vaix was easy to make out because he held the feysword, and it glowed the color of gore dripped in water. Aspar took careful aim and shot at his neck. The arrow crossed into the same space as Leshya had, faded, and slowed to a snail’s pace.

He shot at the Sefry three more times, then located another target, which, as his eyes grew used to the light, was pretty obviously an utin. Its head was turned away, but he aimed for the ear and then the inner thigh of one of the legs. He spent the rest of his shafts on the thing, because he couldn’t be sure who the other shadows were.

He sat down and sharpened his dirk and then his ax. He had a bite to eat and let it settle. He walked over to the battleground and found a lance, which he broke down into a stabbing spear.

Then he went back to the Vhenkherdh and went in.

As before, his heartbeat sped quickly into a buzz, like a mosquito’s, and time went strange.

11 Awake

Neil counted only four men with Robert, all in black leather. They all carried themselves as if they knew how to fight.

“All alone?” Robert asked.

Neil didn’t reply, but he noticed that Alis was nowhere to be seen.

He watched them get closer.

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t make a conversation of this,” the prince said. “Given how our last talk went, I doubt that you’re disappointed.”

Robert drew the feysword, which glowed even more brightly than when Neil had last seen it. It looked like it had been forged from a lightning bolt.

“The music offends me,” the prince confided. “An old friend thought I might like it, but he clearly doesn’t know my tastes.” He stopped and looked down at Neil’s sword and hauberk where they lay on the ground. His eyebrows arched, and his eyes glittered oddly in the torchlight.

Neil had killed his first man when he had had eleven winters, with a spear. He had killed his second a nineday later. He wasn’t strong enough to use a broadsword until he was fifteen.

He threw the first spear, feeling the motion come back to him, as natural as walking. His arm didn’t protest at all, and the shaft flew true, straight into Robert’s shoulder, where it sank deep and stuck. The feysword flew from his hand, and the prince’s shriek was a piercing counterpoint to the strange music coming from the house.

Neil lifted the second spear out of the soil. Everwulf had been right—he still had his feet. He danced toward Robert’s guard as they tried to encircle him, gripping the weapon underhand with his knuckles against his hip.

He rushed up to the lead man, forcing him to cut before he was ready while Neil skipped to the side. His arm shot out, and the steel head punched in at the navel, splitting the chain beneath the leather and coming out bloody. The man stumbled back choking, and Neil went on to deal with the others before the first one discovered that his wound wasn’t critical.

One had come around behind him, so Neil jabbed the butt end back and ducked as something whirred over his hair. He felt the blow connect with a knee and turned, taking the weapon two-handed, and rammed the blade up through the foeman’s crotch.

The spear stuck there, so Neil released it and rolled away, noticing as he did another of Robert’s guards stumbling about headless.

The last man he could see coming from the left, but he was off balance, and there was no way to dodge the blow.

He threw up his forearm to meet the sword at an angle. He heard the snap of bone breaking, and white light seemed to explode from everything.

Between one footfall and the next, the arrows suddenly blurred back to speed, and Aspar followed right after them, vaulting over Leshya and drawing back the ax for a blow. The Vaix’s head whipped around as the arrows hit him. The Sefry stumbled, and Aspar chopped him in the back of the head with the ax as he went by, thrusting at the utin’s eye with the dirk. The dagger went in deep, but the monster hit him with a backhand that slung Aspar back against a tree, then sank its talons into his shoulder and gaped a mouthful of needles at him. Aspar hit the butt of the knife with his palm, driving it in to the hilt. The beast screamed and fell, writhing so furiously in the cramped space that Aspar couldn’t get by it for several long moments. When he was finally able to retrieve his knife and move on, he found two men waiting for him, and beyond he could see the wide opening inside the living lodge where Fend, Winna, and Ehawk were watching him with astonished eyes.

The men confronting him stared at him in what could only be terror.

“You can walk out of here,” Aspar snarled, “or I can kill you.”

A look of resolve flashed over the face of one of them, and he cut at Aspar with the sword. He ducked so that the edge thunked into a tree branch and stayed there while Aspar disemboweled the wielder. The other howled and swung wildly, hitting Aspar on the side of his head with the flat. Aspar stumbled back, ears ringing, as the man shouted something in a language the holter didn’t know.

He threw the ax, and it buried itself solidly in the fellow’s breastbone. He stared at Aspar as he walked up, yanked it out, and kicked him over.

“Fend!”

Fend drew a pair of knives.

“How did you do that?” the Sefry asked.

Aspar didn’t reply. He just stepped into the leafy hall, feeling a sort of calm settle over him. “Aspar!” Winna shouted. She was holding her belly, and her face was ashen. He thought there was blood on her lips, although in the dim light it was difficult to be sure.

“It’s already too late,” Fend said. “It’s already begun.”

“Not too late to kill you, though,” Aspar said.

“Is that all you ever think about? I helped you.”

“Only to get Winna here. You planned to kill me after that.”

“Well, true. I really should have done it sooner, but I had a sense I would need you, and I was right. I only planned to do you because I knew you would slaughter me.”

“And I will.”

“You remember the last time we fought? You’re even older and slower now, and I’m more powerful than ever. I’m the Blood Knight, you know.”

“No playing this time,” Aspar said.

“We can still do this together,” Fend said. “It needs doing.”

“Even if it does, you said it’s already begun. So what do I need you for?”

“I guess you don’t.”

“Aspar!” Winna screamed.

Fend leapt at him, faster than a Mamres monk, his right-hand dagger slashing toward Aspar’s face. The holter ducked, stepped in, and took Fend’s other knife in the gut, then drilled his dirk under Fend’s jaw so hard that he lifted the Sefry clean off his feet. He felt the man’s spine snap.

“I said no playing,” Aspar told him. Then he dropped the gurgling man and slumped down to one knee, lowering his gaze to the knife still stuck in his belly.

He took another look at Fend, but the Sefry was gazing back from beyond the world.

“About time,” he muttered, lowering himself down and scooting toward Ehawk to cut his bonds.

“You let him stab you,” the boy said.

“If I’d fought him, he would have won,” Aspar said. “I’d be dead, and he’d still be alive.” He handed Ehawk the knife. “Cut Winna’s bonds.”

He got up and walked over to Winna. She was panting hard, and he could see her belly moving. She clutched his arm, but her eyes were closed.

“Sceat,” he said. “I’m sorry, love.”

“It’s killing her,” Ehawk said.

“Yah,” he replied.

“What should I do?”

“I don’t know,” Aspar said. “Go bring Leshya here; maybe she knows. She’s right near the entrance.” Ehawk nodded and left.

Aspar was finding it hard to take a deep breath. It was as if something were pushing down on him. “Winna,” he said. “I don’t know if you can hear me. I’m sorry for how I’ve been—always, but especially lately. There was a lot I needed to tell you, but I couldn’t. I had a geos laid on me.”

Winna started to speak, but then she cried out again. Her eyes opened, and he saw they were glazed with pain.

“Still love you,” she said.

“Yah. I still love you. Nothing will change that.”

“Our baby…” She closed her eyes again. “I can see her, Aspar. I see her in the forest with you, with her father. She’s got my hair, but there’s something wild in her, something from you, and she’s got your eyes.”

Aspar reached to stroke her hair, saw he had blood all over his hand, and wiped it on the ground first. When his hand touched the earth, everything went still, and he felt his fingers reach into the soil, dividing, splitting, faster and faster, and his skin was expanding, moving out through the valley, across the hills, to the dying earth around it, and then he was back up north, staring into the eyes of the Briar King as he died.

Holter.

He lifted his hand and was back where he’d started, next to Winna.

Fend was looking down at him.

“Ah, sceat,” Aspar said.

“It’s time,” Fend said. Except that it wasn’t Fend at all, not anymore. It was the witch.

Cazio stood for a moment in a daze, wondering what had just happened, but then he realized that Austra was awake, looking at him.

“Love,” he said. “Are you well?”

As she pulled up, the other people who had been in the crypt rushed out, probably to see what Anne could do now that she could fly.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I was asleep.”

“For days, yes,” Cazio said. “Do you know what happened?”

“I was with Anne, or she was with me,” the girl replied. “It’s a little confusing, but I think her soul came into me while her body healed.”

“Do you know the way out of here?”

Austra looked around. “We’re in Eslen-of-Shadows?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a path up to the castle, yes. But we have to find Anne.”

“Well, she just flew off with the Kept,” Cazio said. “Can you walk?”

“I feel fine.”

“Let’s go, then.”

He helped her to her feet and kissed her.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see what’s happening.”

“A moment there,” a familiar voice said.

Marché Hespero stood in the doorway to the crypt. He looked disheveled, and his voice sounded strained.

Cazio drew Acredo.

“I just need her,” Hespero said, pointing at Austra. “She’s the link; she’s the way to Anne. I can still save us all.”

“You?” Cazio nearly laughed the word. “You expect me to believe you’re trying to save us?”

“Listen,” Hespero said. “The man who brought you here and Anne are fighting as we speak. Anne will probably win, and then she will come and finish me. If that happens, we will wish—beg—for the days when we were Skasloi slaves.”

Cazio stepped in front of Austra.

“About all of that, I know nothing. You might be lying, you might be telling the truth. If I had to guess, I would say the first. It doesn’t matter.”

“He isn’t lying,” Austra murmured.

“What are you talking about?”

“Anne was trying to tell me something like that, even though I don’t think she knew herself what she was getting at. And I am linked to her; we walked the same faneway.”

“Listen to her,” Hespero said. “There’s not much time.”

Cazio looked down at Austra. “Do you trust him?”

“No,” she replied. “But what choice do we have?”

“Well, I’m not letting him have you,” Cazio replied. “He might kill you both.”

She closed her eyes and took his hands. “Cazio, if that’s what it takes…”

“No.”

“I don’t know why I spent any time talking to you at all,” Hespero said. Cazio saw that he had drawn a rapier.

“You remember that your weapon can’t hurt me, I trust.”

“Oh, we’ll find a way, Acredo and I,” Cazio said, taking up his guard.

Anne called lightning into him and for a moment thought it might actually be that easy. But the Jester grinned and regained his feet, and when she hurled another bolt at him, he twirled it around himself somehow and sent it back.

He laughed, just as he had laughed in the otherwhere she first had met him in.

What was so irritating was that she’d had him right under her nose—or at least the part of him that was Stephen. She could have killed him at any time, if only she’d understood, and this would never be happening. Worse, it had been her vision that sent him off to become—this.

How many of her other visions were false?

Well, there was still time to correct that mistake. She clapped her hands together and ripped him out of the world, into the sedos realm.

“A change of scene?” he said. “Very well, my queen.”

The sky raged with her will; the land was all moors of black heather.

“This is mine,” she told him. “All of it.”

“Greedy,” he said.

Her fury kindled deeper.

“I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of this, but you all pushed me. The Faiths, you, my mother, Fastia, Artwair, Hespero—your threats and your promises. Always wanting something from me, always trying to take it by guile or trickery. No more. No more.”

She struck out then, filling the space between them with death of sixteen kinds, and with lovely glee she watched him falter. Yet still he kept smiling, as if he knew something she didn’t.

No more. She saw a seam in him and pulled him open like a book, spreading his pages before her. “You dare call me greedy?” she said. “Look at what is in you. Look at what you’ve done.”

“Oh, I’ve been a bad boy, I’ll admit,” he said. “But the world was still here when I went to sleep. You’re going to be the end of it.”

“I’ll end you for certain,” she said. “You and anyone else who won’t—”

“Do what you say? Leave you alone? Wear the proper hat?”

“It’s mine,” Anne screamed at him. “I made this world. I’ve let you worms live on it for two thousand years. If I give you another bell, you should all beg me from your knees, kiss my feet, and sing me hymns. Who are you to tell me what to do with my world, little man?”

“There you are,” he said. “That’s what we’ve all been waiting for.”

She felt him bend his will toward her, and it was strong, much stronger then she had thought. Her lungs suddenly seized as if filled with sand, and the more she fought, the more the weight of him crushed her. And still he smiled.

“Ah, little queen,” he murmured. “I think I shall eat you up.”

12 Requiem

Neil fell and rolled, desperately clinging to consciousness. He fumbled for the little knife in his boot, but the man kicked him in the ribs hard, flipping him onto his back.

“Stand him up,” he heard Robert say.

Rough hands lifted him and slapped him up against the wall of the house.

“That wasn’t a bad performance,” Robert said. “I had heard you were in worse shape.” He laughed. “Well, now I guess you are.”

Neil tried to focus on Robert’s face. The other fellow had his head turned; he seemed to be looking for something.

Neil spit on the second man. He turned back and slapped Neil.

He hardly felt it.

Robert pinched Neil’s cheeks. “Last time we talked,” he said, “you likened me to a mad wolf who needed to be put down. And here twice you’ve failed to do that. There’s no third chance for you, my friend.”

“I didn’t fail,” Neil said. “I did all I needed to.”

“Did you? And what was that?”

“Distracted you,” Neil said.

Robert’s eyes widened. There was a flash of actinic blue light, and then Neil was facing two headless men. Behind the stumps of their necks a grim-faced Alis appeared, as if stepping from a dark mist, the feysword held in both hands.

Neil fell with the dead man who had been holding him. Robert’s body continued to stand.

Neil wiped blood from his eyes and watched through a haze as Alis picked up Robert’s head. The prince’s lips were working and his eyes rolling, but Neil didn’t hear him say anything.

Alis kissed Robert’s forehead.

“That’s for Muriele,” she said.

Then she tossed the head away, into the yard.

Fend’s dead eyes glimmed like oil on water as the witch of the Sarnwood stooped toward Winna.

“No,” Aspar said. “Fend tricked you.”

She paused, cocking her head.

“It won’t work the way you want it to,” he said. “It can’t.”

“It will,” she said. “I know it.”

“You can’t have my child,” he said. “Her child.”

“My child,” the witch replied.

“Not for long,” Aspar said. He pulled the knife out of his stomach. Blood gouted.

“That can’t hurt me,” the witch said.

“I’ve been wondering,” Aspar grunted. “Why my child?”

He dropped the knife and put one hand on Winna’s belly and the other in a pool of Fend’s blood. He felt the shock of the woorm’s poison and what it had become in Fend’s Skaslos veins before his fingers dug down again. This time they kept digging.

He closed his eyes and saw again the Briar King’s eyes, stared into one of them as it opened wider and wider and finally swallowed him.

He had been sleeping, but something had awakened him; he felt wind on his face and branches

swaying around him. He opened his eyes.

He was in a tree at the edge of a meadow, his forest all around.

A Mannish woman in a brown wool dress lay on her back at the foot of the tree, her knees up and legs spread. She was gasping, occasionally screaming. He felt her blood soaking into the earth. Everything else was still.

There was pain showing through the woman’s eyes, but he mostly saw resolve. As he watched, she pushed and screamed again, and after a time she pulled something pale blue and bloody from herself. It cried, and she kissed it, rocked it in her arms for a few moments.

“Aspar,” she whispered. “My lovely son. My good son. Look around you. This is all yours.”

Then she died. That baby might have died, too, but he reached down from the tree and took him in, kept him safe and quick until, almost a day later, a man came and found the dead woman and the boy. Then he drifted back into the long slow dream of the earth, for just a little while, until he heard a horn calling, and knew it was time to wake fully and fight.

“I’m sorry,” Aspar told the witch. “I’m sorry your forest was destroyed, your world. But there’s no bringing it back. Trying to will destroy what’s left of my forest. That’s what Fend wanted, although I don’t know why.”

“Stop,” the witch hissed. “Stop what you’re doing.”

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” Aspar said. It was the last thing he was able to say; agony stretched him as everything inside of him pressed out against his skin. Then he split open, and with the last light of his mortal eyes he saw green tendrils erupt from his body. They uncoiled fast, like snakes, and reached for the sun.

The pain faded, and his senses rushed out from tree to grass blade and vine. He was a deer, a panther, an oak, a wasp, rainwater, wind, dark rotting soil.

He was everything that mattered.

He pulled life up from the earth and grew, pushing up through the roof and absorbing the thorns into him as he went.

The music lifted, the discord sharpened, and suddenly a murmur grew in the air, the whisper of a thousand crystal bells with pearl clappers chiming his music in all of its parts. It seemed to spin him around, and the air grew darker until even the flames of the candles appeared only as dim sparks. But the music. Oh, it went out of the house and into the vast hollow places of the world. It rang in the stone of the mountains and sang in the depths of the sea. The cold stars heard it, and the hot sun in its passage below the world, and the bones inside his flesh. And still it went on, filling everything. He almost lost his own voice. Mylton’s voice did falter, but then it came back, stronger, leading the lowest chords up from the depths toward the still unseen summit.

On the music climbed, falling now and then but always tending higher, never resolving and seemingly irresolvable.

He couldn’t stop singing now if he wanted to; Mylton’s stumble had been the last time that was possible. He heard many thousands of voices now sighing in the starless gulf, then millions, and he began to panic, because he couldn’t remember how it finished, what was supposed to happen at the end. The music on paper no longer mattered. The requiem had them all in its grip now, and it was going where it wanted to. He felt his body shiver like a dragonfly’s wing and then cease to be. Nothing remained of him but his voice.

The end came, and it was terrifying, wonderful, and then—in a single, impossible moment—perfect. Every note fit with every other. Every voice supported every other. Everything was in its place. The voices of the dead faded with his own.

Mery sagged against the wall and collapsed.

Out in the yard, the head of Robert Dare stopped trying to talk.

Hespero came at him like lightning, lunging and thrusting at Cazio’s groin. He parried quickly in uhtave, but the blade wasn’t there, for the fratrex had disengaged. It was only by wild chance that he managed to catch the blade a second time and stop it from running through his throat.

Cazio stepped back.

“You know how to use a sword pretty well.”

“I may have neglected to mention that I studied with Mestro Espedio.”

Cazio narrowed his eyes. “I met another student of his not long ago. Acredo. This is his sword.” “An acquaintance,” Hespero said. “You killed him, I gather.”

“No. An arrow did.”

Hespero shrugged and came at him again, using the attack of the Cuckold’s Walk Home. Cazio countered it, move for move for move. Acredo nearly had killed him with that attack when they had fought because Cazio hadn’t known the final reply, but he knew the point would be at his throat when it was all over, so he finished with a high controsesso.

Again he didn’t find the blade, but Hespero’s found him, slipping through the ribs of his right side. Cazio fell back, looking at the blood in utter disbelief. Hespero came grimly on.

You’re going to be fine, Cazio thought. He got lucky.

He parried the next attack barely and then desperately struck deep. His blade grazed Hespero’s off-weapon hand and drew blood.

That was a nice surprise.

“You’re a better swordsman than I thought,” Cazio said. “But you aren’t invulnerable anymore.” “If you treat that wound now, you might live,” Hespero said.

“Oh, you’re not getting away that easily,” Cazio said.

“I don’t have time for this,” the fratrex said.

Cazio renewed his attack, a feint to the hand, a bind from perto to uhtave.

Hespero punched him in the jaw with his off-weapon hand. Cazio reeled back, trying desperately to get his guard up.

Austra launched herself at the fratrex, leaping on his back and wrapping her arms around his neck. Hespero reached back with his left hand and grabbed her by the hair, but she didn’t let go until he slammed her into the wall.

By that time Cazio was on his feet, albeit unsteadily. He lurched toward Hespero.

“Saints, you really don’t know when to quit,” Hespero said.

Cazio didn’t waste his limited breath answering; he stamped and started an attack in perto. Hespero, a little impatiently, bound in sesso and riposted; Cazio ducked and lunged low but short.

Hespero started the Cuckold’s Walk Home, and Cazio kept up with him, barely. The last feint came to his throat, and he desperately parried again, and again the blade wasn’t there.

Neither was Cazio. As the final flank stroke came, he twisted his body out of the way and counterattacked rather than trying to parry. Acredo slid neatly through the churchman’s solar plexus. “Don’t ever try the same thing on me twice,” Cazio advised, yanking the blade out.

Hespero went down on one knee, then suddenly leaped forward. Cazio caught the blade and turned it in a bind, so close to missing it that the point dragged across his forehead. Hespero’s low lunge exposed his back, and Cazio drove his sword down between his shoulder blades.

Then he slipped on his own blood and fell. As Austra rushed to him, he put his hand over his wound and closed his eyes.

Stephen cupped Anne’s face in his hand and smiled ever more broadly.

“Are you ready, little queen?”

Anne felt as if her head were full of wasps, but she couldn’t do anything but stare up at him with hatred. But then she felt new strength enter her, strength of a sort she had never known before. It came boiling up in her not from the sedos but from the awful depths surrounding all, the chaos from which the world had been born.

My gift, o Queen, Qexqaneh said.

Her lungs cleared. The weight vanished.

The law of death is mended, the Skaslos said.

Stephen staggered back. “No,” he said.

“Oh, yes,” Anne said. “Certainly yes.”

Her right hand was the sickle of the dark moon, and her left was the hammer of old night, and with them she struck so that he fell in pieces and she hurled the pieces out into the abyss, and she stood and grew until the world was tiny beneath her.

Now, the Kept murmured. Now, my sweet, you only need kill me, and all is done.

Anne stretched her grin. “And how do I do that, Qexqaneh?”

You are the rivers. You are the Night Before the World. Take me into you and destroy me. Give me oblivion at long last. You have my power. Now take my soul.

“Fine,” Anne said. “I’ll do that, then.”

Cazio felt Austra stumble. He tried to put all his weight back on his own feet, but they just wouldn’t take it.

“Stop that,” Austra said. “I can support you.”

“Not up the hill, you can’t,” Cazio said.

“I have to get you to a leic,” she replied.

“I think it would be better if you went and found one,” he said.

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“Then just sit here with me,” he said.

“That’s stupid. You’re bleeding.”

“It’s not so bad,” he lied.

“I’m not a fool, Cazio,” she muttered. “Why does everyone take me for a fool?”

As they crossed the threshold of the crypt, Austra went rigid and gasped. Cazio looked to see what the matter was. Stephen Darige lay facedown a few feet away, but that didn’t seem to be what she was looking at.

“Oh, no,” Austra said. She suddenly felt very warm—no, hot, so hot he couldn’t keep his arm across her shoulders. He stood away, teetered, and had to lean against the mausoleum wall to stay on his feet. “No,” Austra repeated. Her eyes suddenly incandesced, and yellow flame sprang from them.

“Austra!” he screamed.

She looked at him, and she wasn’t Austra but a woman with fine, dark features and arching brows, then a Sefry with white hair. She was Anne, with flaming tresses. She was every woman Cazio had ever made love to, then every woman he had ever met. Her clothes had begun to smolder.

“What’s happening?” Cazio screamed.

“She’s doing it!” Austra said, her voice changing like her face. Then, more exultantly, “We’re doing it!” The ground suddenly was colored with strange light, and Cazio looked up and saw a sun descending toward them, a ball of writhing flame and shadow that made the oldest, most animal parts of him quiver and long to run and never stop running, to find a place where a thing like that couldn’t be.

Instead he held on to the stone, panting, fighting the fear with all the life he had left in him. “Austra,” someone said quietly.

Stephen was standing a few kingsyards away. He didn’t look good. For one thing, one of his eyes was missing.

“Austra,” he said. “You’re the only one who can stop her. Do you understand? He’s tricked her. He’ll die, yes, but he’ll take the world with him. Anne will go mad; it’s too much power. You feel it, don’t you?”

“I feel it,” Austra said. Her voice was that of a woman in the rising throes of passion.

“Fight her,” Stephen said. “You have claim to the power, too.”

“Why should I fight it?” Austra asked. “It’s wonderful. I’ll have the whole world in my veins soon.” “Yes,” Stephen said. “I know.” He stepped closer. “I didn’t know what he was, Austra. That was what I was missing. He’s been waiting in his prison for two thousand years, planning this moment, building it, planting the seeds in all of us. He doesn’t want to rule, he doesn’t want to return his race to glory, he just wants to die and take everything with him. Can’t you see it?”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Don’t,” he said. “Go see for yourself.”

Flames began to dance on her garments. She looked at Cazio, and for a moment her face was that of the Austra he loved.

“Cazio?” she asked.

“I love you,” he said. “Do what’s right.”

Then his legs went out from under him.

Aspar would have laughed if he could, but the joy was there in the leaves and blossoms for anyone to see. He healed the broken, ended the hopeless, and pulled in the poison, spreading and diffusing it, changing it into something new. He found the heart of the Sarnwood witch and took her in, too, took all of her children in, and reckoned at last she understood, because she stopped fighting him and lent him her strength.

Or perhaps it was that she saw what he saw, the deadly fire kindled in the west, the one thing that would stop life’s rebirth and send everything to oblivion.

The real enemy.

He didn’t need a summoning, not now, and so he moved his weight across the world, fearing it was already too late.

Anne felt the black blood of the Kept flowing into her veins and cried out with glee, knowing that no one since time began had wielded might like this: not the Skasloi, not Virgenya Dare, no one. She was saint, demon, dragon, tempest, the fire in the earth. There had never been a name for what she was becoming. The Kept coiled around her as the life leaked from him, and his every touch sent shudders through her body, pleasure and pain so pure that she couldn’t tell them apart and wouldn’t if she could. Through his eyes she saw a hundred thousand years of such sensation and more, and the anticipation was its own luscious bliss.

More! she shouted.

There is more, the dying demon replied. So much more.

Stephen tried to keep his focus, tried to stay in the world, but it was difficult with so much of him gone. Only the ancient, terrible obstinacy of Kauron had let him keep anything, but even that was fading, and soon Anne would notice her mess and clean it up.

It depended on this girl. He ached to take Austra in his arms and drain the life and power from her; she was a vein that tapped right into the thing Anne was becoming, and he—if he had the gift—could bleed Anne through her. She would never see it coming.

But he no longer had that gift. He was less than a skeleton of himself.

He watched as she knelt by Cazio, murmuring, as her clothing finally exploded in blue flame and she was forced to step back from her lover to avoid charring him.

“You can’t heal him, if that’s what you’re trying to do,” Stephen said. “You can’t heal anything. Neither can she. Always a storm, never a gentle rain. Do you understand? But you are her weak spot.”

Austra stared at him with her blistering eyes for a moment, and then the flames began to subside, then smoke, until she was wreathed in dark vapor and her eyes shone like green lamps. Then she lifted toward the terror that hung above them.

Anne felt an ebb in her strength and sought jealously for the source of it. Had she missed someone? Was Hespero still alive?

But no, it was just Austra, bearing a fraction of her strength.

If you die, the Kept said, she inherits all.

She doesn’t have the power to kill me, Anne said. And she wouldn’t if she could.

She can betray you more than anyone. You know that.

“Don’t listen to him, Anne,” Austra said.

“Of course I won’t,” Anne replied. “We’ll rule together, won’t we?”

“Anne, Cazio is dying,” Austra said. “Can you heal him?

“No,” she said. She hadn’t realized until she said it that it was true.

Seize the Vhen throne, Qexqaneh interrupted. Then you can heal any of these worms if that is your wish.

“He’s lying, Anne.”

“Why should he? He’s sacrificing himself for me.”

“He’s using you to destroy the world.”

“So he thinks,” Anne said. “But I’m the one with the power now. Anyway, what’s so great about this world? You’re part of me now; you can see what vermin people are. I’ll create another world. I already see how it could be done. We’ll make it the way we want it, the way it ought to be.”

“That’s crazy, Anne. That means killing everyone you’ve ever known, everyone dear to you.”

“Like who?” Anne screamed. “My father? Fastia? Elseny? My mother is dead, too; did you know that? Everyone I care for is already dead except you and Cazio, and my patience is wearing a little thin with you. Now, if you want Cazio to live, either join me or give up your gifts, because we’ve got one battle left, and I need all the strength I can muster. After that we can have everything, Austra, just the way we want it.”

Austra opened her mouth again, but then she looked beyond Anne.

“I’ll save you, Anne,” she said.

Anne turned.

She stood in a field of ebony roses, the pearls of her dress gleaming like dull bone in the moonlight. The air was so thick with the scent of the blooms that she thought she would choke.

There was no end to them; they stretched to the horizon in a series of low rises, stems bent by a murmuring wind. She turned slowly to see if it was thus in all directions.

Behind her the field ended abruptly in a wall of trees, black-boled monsters covered with puckered thorns bigger than her hand, rising so high she couldn’t see their tops in the dim light. Thorn vines as thick as her arm tangled between the trees and crept along the ground. Through the trees and beyond the vines was only darkness. A greedy darkness, she felt, a darkness that watched her, hated her, wanted her. “I’ve been here before,” she told the forest. “I’m not frightened this time.”

Something pushed through the thorns, coming toward her. Moonlight gleamed on a black-mailed arm and the fingers of a hand, uncurling.

And then the helmet came through, a tall tapering helm with black horns curving up, set on the shoulders of a giant.

But this time, standing her ground, she saw it wasn’t mail but bark, and the helmet was moss and horn and stone. And of the face she could only see the eyes, wells of life and death, birth and decay—need and vengeance.

You have the power, the fading voice of the Kept told her. Kill him and complete yourself. Anne gathered herself, but her peripheral vision caught motion, and she saw Austra running across the field, running straight for the Briar King.

If he gets her, you lose, the Kept said. You must kill her now.

Anne stood, watching.

Kill her, Qexqaneh said more urgently. Do you understand? Through her he can defeat us.

Anne lashed out at Austra, and the girl stumbled. She tried to rip through the connection between them, recover her power, but she saw what the Kept meant, how intimate that connection really was. Killing Austra was the only way for Anne to be whole, to possess everything.

She reached out, felt the life beating in Austra, knew the familiar smell of her, that little lock of hair that was always out of place, always had been since they were little girls. The Briar King reached for her, and Anne, hot tears in her eyes, started to squeeze Austra’s heart.

Austra stumbled to her knees. She looked toward Anne, her eyes mortal now, wide as saucers, just another Mannish beast that didn’t understand why it had to die.

Yes, the Kept sighed. Finally.

Somehow Austra stood back up, even as the strength drained out of her, as Anne took her in. The sky dimmed as she diminished and then went away.

“Our secret place,” she heard Austra whisper in the darkness.

But it wasn’t complete darkness, and Anne saw they were again in the chamber beneath the horz. But now the sarcophagus was open, and in it Austra sat, back propped against one stone wall. She looked as she had when she was nine, a pale waif.

“I knew better,” the little girl said. “I knew better than to hope for anything for myself.”

“Stop whining,” Anne said. “You had a better life than you could have ever hoped for, born as you were.”

“You’re right,” Austra said. “And I wouldn’t trade it. You were always going to be the end of me, Anne. I knew that. You’ll bury me here, and the circle goes on.”

“You didn’t know,” Anne accused.

“Of course I did. I didn’t know how it would happen. It nearly happened a dozen times when we were little.”

“That’s nonsense. I loved you.”

“It’s how you love,” she replied. “It’s how you love, Anne.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You probably don’t,” Austra replied, closing her eyes. “I love you anyway.”

“He’ll kill us both, Austra, if he gets you.”

She nodded tiredly. “I know you won’t, but please let Cazio go. Can you do that for me?”

Anne started to agree, but why should she? She didn’t have to do anything Austra said or for that matter listen to anything she said. She was the only one who could make her feel like this, feel like… Feel like what? she suddenly wondered.

But she knew that, too. When her mother—or Fastia, or anyone—disapproved of something she did, she knew she might be in trouble, but deep down she never actually felt bad.

When Austra disapproved of her, she knew in her heart she was wrong.

She didn’t need that, did she?

She felt the Briar King, his power swelling, reaching for what remained of Austra, tearing through the illusory tomb.

Time was up. She had a heartbeat left to act, but it was all she needed.

No.

With a soft, chagrined laugh, Anne released her hold. The Briar King took Austra and loomed up to the sky. The Kept screamed once as he was ripped from her and hurled into the oblivion he craved, and then she felt as if all her veins had been opened, and the scent of black roses filled her lungs until there was nothing else.