Wrayth

TWENTY Shadows of Bones

As they moved along the corridor, Raed felt Sorcha shiver like a horse about to give up after a long run. She was hanging on by the thinnest of threads, and he kept his arm around her as if that could hold her together. He even found himself murmuring, “It’s all right, it’s all right…” but she didn’t say anything at all in response.

Fraine had finally and thankfully ceased her giggling and was silent between the two crew members. Now and then she lapsed into choked sobs. Tangyre Greene had been undoubtedly the most unwavering point in her life. Their father was no one to pin childish hopes and aspirations on. He was a cruel coward of a man who blamed his mistakes on everyone around him. Then the Rossin had killed their mother, and Raed himself had been sent to sea at a young age.

However his sister’s tears did tear at him. Tangyre had been his friend too, until the moment he’d realized her deception. Though Captain Greene had been a clever woman, he doubted that she had constructed these alliances with the geistlords Hatipai and the Wrayth by herself. Someone else was moving the game pieces. Someone he’d very much like to meet face-to-face.

They had walked for maybe half an hour, before the brick tunnels of what had to be the sewage system of Vermillion broke through into another area he recognized.

Sorcha did too, for her head jerked upright and she stammered, “The White Palace.”

The boneyard of the city was buried beneath everyday citizens’ feet. It was naturally an eerie place, with all the bones arranged in patterns and stacks around them, but even more so when seen through the veil of memory. It was here, two seasons past, that he had been part of the being made up of himself, Sorcha, Merrick and the Rossin. They had battled the Murashev for the city and all the citizens in it. Raed reminded himself of one vital fact. They had won.

Raed had only spotty memories of that time, but when he looked into Sorcha’s eyes he caught flashes of it. The power and the rage that they both had experienced while melded with the Rossin. It still called to them both.

“Strange isn’t it,” she said with a twist of her lips, “that the last time we were here we were all-powerful…now look at us.”

He glanced back, and saw what she meant. Only a few of his crew members remained. Aachon’s weirstone had been destroyed, as had Sorcha’s Gauntlets. The only thing he had to show for the pursuit of his missing sister was the fact that Fraine was with them. However, even that was not the joyful reunion he had once imagined.

Sorcha touched his face, a stroke along his chin. “I have to find Merrick, but…” She stopped and caught her breath before going on. “But how am I to find him?”

Raed had never seen her like this, and while he loved that she was ready to show him her vulnerable side, the larger part of him was distressed by it. Brushing a lock of her red hair back behind her ear, he said as soothingly as possible, “He’ll be at the Mother Abbey of course. Let’s go.”

Aachon checked the tightness of Fraine’s binds, and Raed overheard what he said to her. “My princess, we are going aboveground, and it would be best if you do not cry out. You, like your brother, have a bounty on your head.”

She clamped her lips shut, but her eyes gleamed angrily. Raed knew his sister was lost to him—there were just some places a soul could not come back from—but he knew that he would still try to reach her. Maybe the clever, all-seeing Merrick would have some ideas.

They climbed up through the mausoleum doors that Sorcha directed them to and out onto the streets of Vermillion. Raed pulled up his hood and Fraine’s—though she glared at him for this consideration. However as soon as they were out in the fresh early evening air, he felt something else apart from the chill. It was the Rossin, close to the surface, and he was relishing in something he tasted on the breeze.

They are gone and we are all unfettered.

Raed did not repeat the words to his companions, because he immediately knew what that meant. He didn’t need to have it explained—he could feel them out there. The geists were stirring.

Yet when he shot a look at Sorcha he knew she didn’t feel a thing. So he urged them on through the streets of Vermillion, across the gilt bridge that was strangely calm, and to the Imperial Island itself.

His crew tried to hide their awe as best they could. A few of them had been with him last time they were in Vermillion, but the Imperial City always impressed, with its canals gleaming under the moon, and its vast network of lamps on every street. By rights, the crew of Dominion should be coming here as heroes, not as thieves in the night, but Raed had long ago learned that life did not necessarily give people what they had earned.

Still, it was what it was. Raed gestured to Aachon, and they broke up the crew into three smaller groups, so as not to draw the attention a small mob would. However all of them strolled as casually as they could toward the same goal.

It was quiet out. The fancy residences on the lower slopes had many lights burning in the windows, but there were no carriages about on the street. Sorcha kept her hand in his and would not let him go. Truthfully, it was a comfort to him as well. In this crumbling world, he would hold on to Deacon Sorcha as tight as he dared.

He squeezed her hand, and she looked at him with a smile that made everything seem all right, even if it were for just a second.

It was as if Fraine took this as a cue. She’d been quiet for a long spell, but then, just as the crew that held her was taking in the sights of Vermillion, she moved.

Raed heard Aleck yell, and then shouts from the rest of the crew members. Aachon reacted first, darting—with surprising speed for a man his size—after the fleeing Fraine. Raed spun around to see Aleck clutching his nose, which was spurting blood down his shirt.

“Sorry, Captain,” he choked out, “she’s got a pretty good uppercut.”

They should have bound her hands behind her. “Stay here,” the Young Pretender shouted to Sorcha, before joining Aachon in the pursuit. He told himself they should be able to catch her easily enough; she didn’t know the city that well.

They chased her down an alleyway, and then another with low-strung laundry. “Fraine! Wait!” Raed bellowed uselessly after her, but the only glimpse he got of his sister was her white shirt disappearing around another corner.

Raed eventually passed Aachon, who was puffing and panting, but still gamely kept on. Ahead came a vague rumble of noise, and one that the Young Pretender was very familiar with; it was a mob.

“By the Blood, Fraine!” he shouted, as ahead he could see the entrance to the street. Fraine shot a look over her shoulder, victorious and enraged. The rumble of the crowd was nearby, and now he could identify screams and howls. Something was driving these people, and if Sorcha had lost her power, then he could hazard a guess what was loosed in the city.

Raed caught a glimpse of his sister, outlined against the chaos. She looked into it, the tumble of arms and legs, and the bodies already falling to the hard stone.

Fraine stepped out into the street with a cruel grin in his direction. The mob swept her up, hundreds of terrified people running for their lives in one direction. Aachon held his arm, but Raed did not go into the street. He swallowed hard and stared into the maelstrom of panic. He could see, thanks to the Rossin, the faint wisps of geists darting among them, driving the crowd to greater frenzy and panic.

They came nowhere near him though—the geistlord so near to the surface kept them back like flame in a wild animal’s eyes. The mob passed as quickly as it had come, moving on and leaving a trail of dead and injured in its wake.

Raed had to know. With Aachon silent at his back, he walked out onto the street, his boots occasionally slipping in blood and gore, until he found her. Looking down at his sister, her limbs spread at odd angles, her eyes wide and her lips still stretched in a mad grin, Raed felt his world contract.

“She did this deliberately,” Aachon said, but bending and draping his own cloak over her. “My prince, you should not—”

“Enough,” Raed held up his hand, feeling his insides turn to lead. “You’re right, but she is still my sister.” He picked her up and carried her back to the group.

The crew glanced between the first mate and their captain in utter shock. Sorcha’s jaw clenched. Raed deposited Fraine’s still-warm body into the arms of Arriann. The young man swallowed hard.

“You know your way back to the ossuary?” Raed croaked out, and when Arriann nodded he continued. “Take her back there, then come find us at the Abbey. It is fitting that my sister should lie in the boneyard of our ancestors. Be quick about it.”

The young crew member dropped his gaze away from his captain’s and turned to do as bid.

Sorcha started forward, “Raed, I—”

“Not yet.” He held up one finger sharply before her. “This will be for later.” He’d always known that trying to stop Fraine might mean her death, but he had never imagined she would choose to take her own life. That was a specific kind of pain.

“To the Mother Abbey then,” he said, and turned back to their original course.

They didn’t have to walk far up the hill to see what else was wrong with Vermillion. Sorcha stopped, absolutely still in the middle of the road, and stared.

Raed was not a Deacon, but he also felt the shock of what they were witnessing. The Mother Abbey stood as it always did, with the Devotional towering behind the walls, and the cluster of lower buildings around it only glimpsed over the top of them. However the gates were shut, and no lay Brother guarded the outside this time. Ranks of Deacons in the blue and green lined the walls. They were armed. It was immediately obvious why; lined up outside the gate were ranks upon ranks of Imperial Guard. They looked like red toy soldiers lined up at their master’s bidding.

Indeed, the Emperor must have emptied their garrison, because it looked like all five hundred were outside, at attention.

They were not attacking the Mother Abbey that Raed could see, but they were most effectively blockading it. Sorcha took a step forward as if to try and simply walk through the lines, but Raed grabbed her shoulder.

“Don’t,” he hissed to her.

When she spun around on him, he could see the glint of panic and rage in her eye. This had been a dire day for her; learning how she was conceived, losing her Gauntlets and now seeing her Order put under virtual siege. A weaker person would have crumbled under such an assault. “I have to get in. By the Bones, I have no love for the Arch Abbot, but he is still my superior—”

“Look at these!” Raed snatched her Gauntlets from her belt and brandished them in front of her face. “Have you ever heard of the runes being destroyed like this? I had the best education my father could provide, and I can tell you I never have!”

Aachon was also gape-mouthed and staring at the quite unimaginable scene. Raed knew his first mate concealed his disdain for the Order, but by the expression on his face, he too was at an utter loss.

Luckily, all of them standing around staring in slack-jawed horror was not going to attract any attention, because there were plenty of other folk doing the very same thing. The citizens of Vermillion clustered in the shadows of nearby buildings, whispering among themselves as if afraid the Guard would turn on them.

Since no others of his crew were quite capable of movement or thought, Raed took it upon himself to find out what he could. A huddle of three older women seemed the best pick to approach. Two were wearing the long aprons of fishmongers, and smelled appropriately, while the third had the look of some old streetwalker well past her prime. They were obviously not residents of the Imperial Island, but must have trekked from other parts to observe proceedings.

He sketched a little bow, though in these circumstances it was perhaps a little over the top. “Excuse me ladies, I’ve just come in from the countryside, and had a message to deliver to the Arch Abbot. Do you know what is going on here? Is it some kind of ritual?”

“Ritual!” one growled. “Not like one I’ve ever seen, and I’m born and bred in Vermillion.”

“The captain of the Guard demanded the Deacons open the gates half an hour ago,” a second, with a kindly face, spoke with the hushed tones of one in the know and more than willing to share. “They said something about being traitors.”

“Never liked them Deacons,” the third offered, “but they did protect us. Now there is a rumor going around all their power is gone.”

“They deserve it though—taking the Emperor’s sister right out of her own bed and all!”

Raed couldn’t quite believe what they were saying. He was no friend to Kaleva, or his sister, but he had saved the latter’s life once. That tended to stick with a person.

He put on his most winning smile. “Forgive me, lovely ladies. But I have been long from Vermillion, and had not heard this news.”

“Really?” The fishmonger with a face like it had been struck with a fry pan, glared at him. “Living under some kind of rock were you?”

The streetwalker however flashed him a grin, almost devoid of teeth. “The Order took her last week. Snatched from her own room, and she hasn’t been heard from since. The Arch Abbot there won’t give up the Deacon that did it neither.”

“You don’t happen to know the name of that particular Deacon do you?” A deep part of the Young Pretender twisted—like he’d eaten something rotten.

“I do,” the second fishmonger said, waving the stump of her index finger. “Made me laugh and all…something like chamber pot I think.”

By the Blood, it could only be one Deacon. “Could it have been Chambers, perhaps?” Raed ventured.

“Oh yah, that’s it!” two of the ladies piped up, while the third deliberately turned her back.

The Young Pretender smiled. “Thank you for your kindness gentle ladies.”

The streetwalker actually reached around and pinched his backside as he made to go. “I’d love to do you a quick one right here,” she shouted after him, “but this looks like it’s getting interesting real soon.”

Raed half backed, half leapt away, before striding back to his companions. He put his hand on Sorcha’s shoulder, and leaned in close to her ear. “I am sorry to tell you this—but I think what has happened to you has happened to all of the Deacons.”

She sagged against him, and he would not have given her the terrible news about Merrick, but she needed to know. She glanced up at him. “There’s something else too, isn’t there?”

He swallowed. “Yes, yes there is. According to that huddle of gossips, last week your partner was accused of kidnapping the Grand Duchess.”

Sorcha looked down at her feet, her jaw working from side to side, and her grip on his arm tightening. “I knew he was going to the palace just a bit too often, but I can’t believe he was stupid enough to kidnap Zofiya—and besides—why would he want to?”

It did seem ridiculous. Merrick was far too clever a young man to do anything so mad. Yet, he had been quite deeply in love with Nynnia and then had her snatched away. Had he set his sights on another unattainable woman?

“I don’t know,” Raed shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. But then”—he swept his arm to encompass the whole scene before them—“none of this does.”

“The runes destroyed,” Sorcha repeated under her breath. “That is even more unbelievable.”

Perhaps she’d been hoping it was just herself that was affected, and when her colleagues examined her Gauntlets they would have an answer. It was not to be.

That was the final straw. She had been through too much, and her energy was sapped beyond words. Sorcha slumped against him, staggering on her feet like an injured horse. Raed swiftly picked her up, cradling her against his body. She was terribly thin and light. In comparison, he had more energy than he knew what to do with. The Rossin had eaten well. He could have carried her for hours.

Sorcha’s head lolled against his chest. “We must get inside and find Merrick,” she gasped. “I need him but I can’t feel him anymore.” Her eyes were so glassy it seemed she might cry. He wouldn’t blame her.

He is not in there. The mouse has escaped his trap. Perhaps he gnawed off his own paw.

The Rossin was almost purring, and very near the surface now.

Can’t you feel him? He is a part of you, as much as he is a part of her.

When the Rossin pointed it out—full of strength and vigor—Raed could. The Bond Sorcha had created had always been such an intangible thing to the Young Pretender. She’d spoken of it, and he knew it existed, because she had found him in Orinthal with its help, but he’d never been able to sense it. Until now.

It was a pull, the direction of all things. Perhaps this was what migrating birds on their way south for the winter felt. Raed twisted his head back and forth feeling the unusual nature of this awareness.

The Rossin was helping him. Just why he would do that was another impossible question to answer.

“I can feel him,” he whispered, and Sorcha, still held in his arms, stared up at him in undisguised disbelief and relief. “He is not in the Mother Abbey. He is in the city, not far away.” Raed kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go find him.”