Madeline Howard - A Dark Sacrifice

She chewed on a ragged fingernail and glanced sideways at her father where he perched on the porch beside her. He might enter the palace easily enough, fly in through an open window with the guards none the wiser. And while he had not the power to speak with anyone once he arrived inside, he could carry a written message, supposing someone capable of reading it could be found….

She was just opening her mouth to suggest a trip to the marketplace, to sell the torc and buy paper and ink, when there was a little commotion on the street. A group of fine ladies in silks and velvets rode up on beautiful high-stepping horses, with a swarm of servants and attendants following immediately behind them.

With a glare and a shake of her head for the Prince, Sindérian waited for the riders to dismount, then stepped forward and made a deep obeisance before a severe-looking, fair-haired woman who appeared to be the highest in rank. “My companions and I are envoys from Thäerie and Leal. We have arrived here after a long, perilous journey, bringing messages of great urgency for the King. In truth, our errand here is so vital,” she added earnestly, “that even an hour’s delay in bringing these things to King Ristil’s attention might prove fatal. Will you help us?”

The recipient of all this eloquence was frowning doubtfully when another woman, somewhat younger and a good deal comelier, gave a smile and a friendly nod in Sindérian’s direction. “But I know this lady, do I not?” Pulling off her riding gloves, she beckoned the young wizard to advance a little closer. “Yes, I do know you, though I don’t distinctly recall the place or the occasion.”

Sindérian herself hardly knew what to say, until Faolein’s voice spoke with quiet conviction inside her head: It is Luenil.

Even then it took a moment before that name had any meaning. Then a fragmentary memory surfaced.

Luenil—Guenloie’s wet nurse?

She is called Sigvith now, answered Faolein. It is easy to see that she has risen in the world since the last time we saw her. Nevertheless it is the same woman.

Sindérian blinked and cast her mind back more than nineteen years. Yes, there was a strong resemblance—but more than that, she knew that her father was infallible in the matter of names. It was his great gift. Gathering her wits, she sank into another curtsy. “Lady, we have met, but it was so long ago I scarcely dared hope that you would remember.”

Luenil (or Sigvith) smiled again, an expression that brightened her whole face and made her appear many years younger. The resemblance, elusive before, was now unmistakable. “Then you are very welcome here. If you and these friends will follow us inside, I will try to arrange an audience with the King.”

And so, under the aegis of no less a person than Ristil’s queen, Sindérian and her companions entered the Heldenhof, a turn of events that left her head spinning. “You managed that very cleverly,” Prince Ruan hissed in her ear as they crossed the threshold. “But how did you do it?”

Sindérian shook her head and gave no answer. She was not altogether certain herself how this fortunate meeting could possibly have occurred—and even if she had known, this was hardly the time for complicated explanations.

Reluctantly at first, Kivik’s refugees began to move indoors and find quarters for themselves in the ancient buildings. A pair of bedraggled old women hunkered down in a pantry inside the keep; a blind woodcarver, his daughter, and five skinny grandchildren settled in a nearby scullery; before the day was over, a dozen more had trickled in through the worm-eaten doors. In contrast, the fighting men, more accustomed to obeying orders, packed up their gear immediately and took up residence in the seven gatehouses, an old barracks, and a row of houses in the outer bailey.

Over the next two days, more and more of the dispossessed gathered up their scanty belongings, their blankets, cooking pots, and rough bits of crockery; deserted the rapidly diminishing city of tents and hovels; and joined their relatives and neighbors indoors. Kivik did not deceive himself as to the reason, which was a certain habit of loyalty more than any conviction that the buildings were really safe, and he was more grateful than he could say for their show of faith.

But this time their faith will be justified, he told himself. This time I’ve chosen well for them. It never occurred to him to wonder at his own confidence, or to ask how a single night inside the keep had banished all his doubts.

One evening at sunset, he decided to join some of the men who patrolled the battlements on the outermost wall. After climbing a long, windy stair, he discovered Skerry already there ahead of him, stationed by the jagged parapet wall on the south side, looking out across the valley with an expression of intensest concentration on his face.

Waving the others on, Kivik walked over to join him, curious to discover what held his cousin’s attention so completely that it kept him standing there in a gale, which, if it were any stronger, might have blown him right off the battlements.

For a time neither spoke. They had been friends for so long that they sometimes divined each other’s thoughts by a hundred small clues of stance and expression, so that words were unnecessary.

Down below, the snow was ruddy with sunset. If he listened carefully, Kivik could hear the quarrelsome evening voices of the crows in the pinewoods. Higher up the mountain, rocks crumbled in the cold, setting off a minor avalanche. Between the woods and the fortress a company of ice giants was stamping around in the drifts, performing some species of maneuver. In the wan light, their immense, rough-hewn faces, every shade of grey from almost black to a muddy ashen hue, looked craggier than ever; their uncanny blue hair took on a faint purple cast.

Kivik shifted his weight from one foot to the other, threw a corner of his cloak over his shoulder to keep out the wind. No amount of gazing at the giants could make them less fearsome. Their size alone was enough to terrify, their prodigies of strength and ferocity, their unfathomable power over the weather.

Though they had never attempted to attack the fortifications or batter down the gates, they gave a vigilant impression of watching the fortress as closely as those inside watched them. They appreared to be waiting for something.

The Prince scowled. A parley was impossible, for there was no way of communicating with them.

Perhaps worst of all was how little he and his people knew about them. He wanted to ask: Why did you attack us? What are we to you? A year ago you were only a legend. Why do you make common cause with the Eisenlonders and the skinchangers against us?

But he and they had no common language. Their speech was no more to him than the booming of the wind, the cracking of stones up in the heights; he imagined that any words of his would be as the squeaking of mice or the twittering of birds to them. A wizard might speak to them, perhaps, but not a prince of Skyrra.

“I think,” said his cousin, coming unexpectedly out of his reverie, “that I am learning to recognize some of them. That old fellow there: I have an idea he is one of their chieftains.”

Kivik’s scowl turned thoughtful. Compared to the other giants, the one Skerry pointed at was positively gaunt and stooped—if still many times the size of the biggest man in King Ristil’s army—and his hair was the color of blue smoke. An elder, he might be, or a clan patriarch, supposing the creatures even knew such concepts. “Anyway, he seems to keep the others in order.”

The giants began to disperse, heading off in several directions: some toward the woods, some toward the mouth of the vale. One of them, with an aspect wilder and keener, and his sapphire hair caught up in a great horse’s-tail by an iron ring, heaved up his war hammer and proceeded to reduce a pile of boulders into tiny fragments, roaring hugely all the while. So far as Kivik could see, his action served no other purpose than to flaunt his strength.