Madeline Howard - A Dark Sacrifice

Yet a little burr of doubt continued to prick at his mind. Can the dead lie? He could think of no reason why not—nor any reason to doubt them either.

Someone was pressing him to drink from a massive goblet rough with unpolished gemstones; he could not see a face, but the hand on the stem was covered in brindled fur. He thought he ought to refuse, he intended to refuse, but his hands seemed to move independently of his head. He raised the cup to his lips and took a sip of the clear, strong wine. The flavor was full and rich—but it left a bitter taste on his tongue.

He woke with a start, lying on his back in the four-poster bed. Raising his head from the velvet coverlet, he found Berin and Nali still standing guard in the exact same places they had been when he first drifted off. How long had he slept? It could not have been very long, or the boys would have changed their positions, if only a little. Yet what a long and strange dream it had seemed to be!

Despite the brevity of his nap—and in spite of the lingering aftertaste of the dream wine in his mouth—he felt wonderfully refreshed. Indeed, he felt warm, safe, comfortable right where he was, all these things for the first time in many weeks. Nevertheless, he rose and armed himself with the help of his guards, then led them back through all the mazes of the many-corridored keep.

Though the plan of the place had puzzled him before, he had no trouble finding his way back to the guardroom and the door to the courtyard. Somehow, the mazes had resolved themselves as he slept.

Outside, it was full daylight, the sun dazzling off new-fallen snow, but the cold struck him forcibly and the wind tore through him in an icy blast. He no longer had any doubts about moving into the keep. It was folly, he told himself—worse, it was madness—for his people to remain outside in their makeshift shelters.

As he moved through the outer wards of the fortress with the news of his safe return running on ahead of him, he met up with Skerry and their cousin Winloki standing with heads close together, as if caught in the midst of some private conversation. He greeted them cordially, amused by nearly identical expressions of relief he saw on their faces at finding him whole and sane after his night’s adventures—after all, he had never been in the slightest danger.

But his amusement faded as he took a longer look at Winloki. Because she had changed; how she had changed! Unlike Skerry, whose gaunt face he had grown accustomed to in stages, seeing him every day, the alteration in her was far more dramatic. There was little left to remind him of the confident, high-spirited girl he had known in Lückenbörg. Her red-gold hair was pinned up in untidy braids; her gown of healer’s grey was threadbare. Dark smudges of exhaustion discolored the skin under her eyes.

The long, arduous trek to Tirfang, the privations that she as much as anyone had suffered since, had worn away so much of her beauty that Kivik felt his heart turn over in pity. He promised himself that somehow, someday he would make it up to her.

In the meantime, there was much to be done, and the sooner started the better for everyone. “Tell Thyra and the other healers, you can choose any room in the keep that you like to serve as an infirmary,” he told her. “I want all of our sick and wounded moved inside immediately.”

The road was dusty, weary, and long, winding up one gentle rise and down another, across broad grasslands under the glare of the noonday sun. Despite the heat Sindérian’s headache had finally subsided, from a pain that threatened to crack open her skull to a dull throb, a slight blurring around the edges of her vision.

The falcon that was her father—that had been the wizard Faolein—flew on ahead. At her side walked Prince Ruan, alien and inscrutable as ever, while the guardsman Aell brought up the rear. Her stomach growled with hunger; mornings came far too early during summer in these northern lands, and it had been a long time since breakfast.

“We might,” said the Prince when they reached the top of the next rise, “like to stop and rest a while in the shade of those trees.” He indicated a little copse of oak and ailum nestled in a hollow west of the road.

Sindérian swung around to look at him, a motion that sent sharp pains shooting through her head. She was beginning to recover after being beaten against the rocks when their boat sank two days ago near the coast, but it took a long time for a head injury to mend, even when one happened to be a wizard and a healer.

She frowned at Ruan, as much in puzzlement as in pain. It was not like him to suggest a pause so early in the day; the inhuman vitality he had inherited from his mother’s people, the Ni-Féa Faey, made him always eager to keep going, to press on despite weariness, pain, or tired feet.

Not, she thought irritably, that he is likely to have experienced such a thing as tired feet in the whole of his life! His unflagging energy—along with a certain shine that never seemed to wear off no matter the hardship—was particularly insufferable at moments like this.

“Your face is the color of whey, and you look utterly spent,” he said. “A rest now may save trouble later.”

Sindérian wanted to say no. Despite the warmth of the day, despite weariness and headache, she felt a suffocating sense of urgency. They were, after all, in a race with Ouriána’s minions to reach Lückenbörg, and the price of arriving too late threatened to be disastrously high. But as she wavered indecisively the falcon flew back and landed on her shoulder, cocking his head and regarding her with a fierce golden eye. It made for a startling contrast when her father’s mild, gentle voice spoke inside her head: Be wise, Sindérian, and do as he suggests. A short delay now could make for a swifter pace after.

With an impatient gesture, she agreed. They could not afford to make mistakes born of haste, and a brief rest in the shade of trees would be very welcome.

Sitting in the long, cool grass under an oak, Sindérian drew in a deep breath, savoring complex odors of earth and growing things. There was, she believed, something particularly healing about the air here. A green smell in a green land.

Aell handed her a leather flask, and she took a long drink of water, then passed it on to the Prince.

Resting her back against the rugged bark of the trunk, she allowed herself to relax, let her eyes close.

Neither sleeping nor dreaming, she reviewed the events of the last few months, watched them pass like so many vivid paintings behind her eyelids.

It had begun at the wizards’ Scholia on Leal, with that thunderbolt of an announcement that Nimenoë’s daughter still lived. The Princess Guenloie, subject of a hundred prophecies, born to be Ouriána’s bane and the salvation of her foes, had been discovered alive and grown to young womanhood. A small party had been chosen to travel north to the realm of Skyrra, where the girl had been seen, a secret embassy meant to enlist her aid in their ongoing battle against the Empress and to bring her back home to Thäerie, the place of her birth.

Already, the journey had been long, difficult, and full of unexpected obstacles. Perhaps worst of all was the voyage from Arkenfell, which ended in disaster and left them as they were now, travelling on foot through a foreign land, destitute except for those things they wore or carried with them. At least Prince Ruan had been able to sell the brooch from his cloak, in one of the tiny towns along the coast, and he had used a handful of ivory coins to buy the water flasks and a small amount of food.

A windstorm of wings fanning against her face brought Sindérian out of her thoughts with a jolt; perhaps she had been dreaming after all. Opening her eyes, she saw Faolein undergoing a new transformation: flesh and bone turning malleable as wax, stretching here, condensing there. In a very short time, a bird of a kind she had never seen before, something between a goshawk and a kestrel, was preening its feathers in the grass at her feet.