David Coe - Shapers of Darkness

“Please, my lord,” she said, facing Tebeo, her tears still flowing. “Tell me what’s happened.”

“Brall is dead, Evanthya. That’s why it took his men so long to reach us.”

“I’m sorry, my lord.” She wanted to ask about Fetnalla, but the words stuck in her throat. At last she managed just to speak her love’s name. “Fetnalla?”

“The first minister killed the duke,” Traefan said, in a voice as bitter as wolfsbane.

Evanthya felt her world buck and shift, as if another boulder had struck the castle. She had expected to hear of Fetnalla’s death. Of course she had hoped that her love was all right, that somehow she had escaped Brall’s fate, but she had been bracing herself for the worst. The whole land was descending into bedlam and blood. All across the Forelands lovers were learning of such loss. Why should she have been spared? Fetnalla is dead . Those were the words she had been dreading, that she had been certain she would hear. But this. . “That’s impossible,” she whispered.

“She killed three of his guards as well.”

“But she wouldn’t-”

“Did your friend possess shaping magic?” the man demanded, his eyes boring into hers.

The question stopped her short, for of course Fetnalla did. Shaping, healing, and gleaning. Fine magics for the minister of a powerful house. Just this night, Evanthya had wished for her love’s shaping power. How often had Fetnalla said that she would gladly trade shaping for language of beasts, which was one of Evanthya’s magics? They had laughed about it many times, offering to swap powers like merchants in a marketplace comparing wares. In one of their beds. In each other’s arms.

Evanthya felt her stomach heave and bit down against the bile.

I will not be sick here, not in front of these men .

“Your silence is answer enough,” Traefan said, disgust in his voice. “Their necks were broken. There was no sign they’d been garroted or attacked in any way. Just four broken necks, neat as you please. Explain that. Explain why she fled.”

“My lord, you know Fetnalla. She’s no murderer.” But hadn’t Fetnalla pushed her to have Shurik killed? Hadn’t she given Evanthya gold to pay the assassin?

“We searched the forest for her all that night,” Traefan said, “but we didn’t dare delay any longer. She’d already kept us away from Dantrielle long enough.”

Evanthya stared at her duke, shaking her head in confusion.

She didn’t follow much of what Traefan told her then. There was something about provisions and archers and a broken wheel on one of Orvinti’s carts. But she understood enough. Fetnalla had been slowing their march to Dantrielle. If this Eandi warrior was to be believed, she had been doing all she could to keep Brall from breaking Numar’s siege. Which meant that she was willing to let Tebeo die in this war. And Evanthya as well.

She wouldn’t .

How strangely her love had behaved the last time they were together. How distant she had been, how evasive the night she awoke from some dark terrible dream that had her speaking of Weavers in her sleep.

It’s Brall’s fault , Evanthya wanted to say. If all this is true - could it be? — he drove her to it with his mistrust, his accusations . But she knew better. Traefan spoke of treason, of murder. There could be no justification for that, no matter how poorly her duke might have treated her.

Fetnalla is no traitor .

During the snows, the last time Evanthya and Tebeo journeyed to Orvinti, Fetnalla had given her a pendant, a glimmering sapphire on a finely wrought silver chain. Evanthya wore it still; even now her hand wandered to her chest to feel the pendant beneath her clothes and mail. She had questioned the gift then, wondering how her love could afford to give such a gift when she had given all her gold for Shurik’s murder. Fetnalla had grown angry, of course. It seemed recently that they were always angry at one another for something. You sound like Brall, she had said. I’ve been paid my wage since then. And rather than argue further, Evanthya had accepted this explanation, along with the necklace.

Now, though. . What if the gold had come from a different source? It was said that the conspiracy had a good deal of gold, that those who joined it were paid quite well.

“First Minister?”

She stared at the duke, trying to make herself remember what he had been saying to her, trying to focus on his face. It seemed she was in a mist-yet another, on what was becoming a night of mists.

“I’m sorry, my lord. I was. . I was thinking.”

They were alone, or as much alone as two people could hope to be in this castle, with the maimed and dead lying everywhere, with healers moving from wound to wound with swift precision, with conquerors and the conquered coming to grips with an uneasy peace.

“I asked if you thought it possible that Traefan was right about Fetnalla.”

No, it couldn ‘t be! Her heart screamed for her to give voice to its denial. But Tebeo deserved better. “I’m not certain what to believe, my lord.”

“The rift between them had grown too wide,” he said, his voice low, his dark eyes fixed on some distant torch. Evanthya had to remind herself that he had lost his oldest friend and closest ally. “There was a time when I blamed Brall for that. .” He left the thought unfinished.

“As did I, my lord. I still believe that his suspicions were unjustified. At least at first.”

“You think he drove her to it?”

She regarded him briefly, wondering if he was challenging her to make such an accusation, or if he asked the question innocently. Deciding at last that he was as desperate to understand as she, Evanthya nodded. “I think it’s possible.”

“Then you do believe that she killed him.”

“I don’t want to believe any of this,” she said. “I want to wake up and find that the siege never happened, that Brall and Fetnalla are still alive in Orvinti, bickering like children.”

Tebeo said nothing. He merely gazed at her, looking sad and old and so weary that he seemed to be in pain. The truth was that she did believe it, despite the ache in her heart, or perhaps because of it.

“Yes,” she finally said, the admission feeling like a betrayal, “I believe it.”

“Did she ever speak to you of the conspiracy?”

“Of course she did, my lord. We spoke of it quite often. How could we not? I’ve told you already. . what we did. But if you mean, did she ever try to turn me to their cause, the answer is no.”

“What would you have done if she had?”

There was a right answer to this. She was certain of it. But she had no idea what it might have been. “I don’t know, my lord. I. . I love her very much.” She was crying again, tears pouring from her eyes. “I want to tell you that I would have come to you and told you immediately of her betrayal.” She nearly choked on the word. “But I just don’t know.”

Tebeo actually smiled. He stepped forward and gathered Evanthya in his arms so that she could sob like a babe against his chest. “Thank you,” he whispered, “for being honest with me.”

After what seemed a long time, Tebeo released her. Evanthya stepped back, wiping tears from her face, embarrassed that she should carry on so in front of her duke. She meant to apologize, but he didn’t give her the chance.

“I’m sorry to have to ask this, First Minister, but do you have any idea where Fetnalla might have gone?”

Strange that it hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder. “No, my lord, none.”

“She must know that we’ll be looking for her, and she must know that if we find her, we’ll have no choice but to execute her.”