David Coe - Shapers of Darkness

Aindreas stepped to the altar, his gaze falling briefly to the knife.

“Hello?” he called, his voice echoing loudly through the shrine.

No answer. Would she refuse to come to him? Had he waited too long to speak with her?

“Brienne?”

“Father!” The reply seemed to come from a great distance, soft as a sigh. Still, the very sound of her voice made him flinch as might the hammering of a siege engine against Kentigern’s gates. He took a step back, struggling with an overwhelming urge to run.

Before he could, however, she appeared before him, just on the other side of the altar. Her form was insubstantial at first, a shimmering pale mist. But it quickly coalesced, his daughter seeming to come to life before his eyes. Her golden hair, her soft grey eyes, glowing as if lit from within. She wore the same sapphire gown he remembered from the night of her death, though it was now unbloodied and whole.

“Brienne,” he sobbed, tears coursing down his face.

“Poor Father,” she said, a sad smile on her lips. She looked so much like her mother had at the same age.

“Forgive me!” he cried.

“For what, Father?”

“For. .” He stopped himself. It was so easy to forget that the Brienne he saw in his presence chamber and the corridors of his castle was but a creation of his mind, a false image brought on by grief and guilt. This was the real Brienne, or at least what remained of her. “For not coming sooner,” he said at last, silently cursing himself for giving in to weakness and lies, even here, in front of his lost child.

“It’s all right. I know how you’ve mourned me.”

He felt as though she had taken hold of his heart. Did she really know? Had she seen all he had done in the name of vengeance? “Your mother wished to come” was all he could think to say. “She’s suffered greatly since your. . since we lost you.”

“I understand.”

They stood in silence for several moments. Aindreas managed to compose himself, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the wraith. She had been so lovely, so young. And though she looked much as he remembered her, there was something cold and distant in her appearance now. It was as if she had aged centuries without actually being touched by the passage of time. Was this what happened in the Underrealm?

“You have questions for me,” she said at last.

He nodded. “So many.”

“He didn’t do it, Father.” There could be no mistaking the rebuke in her voice. “Tavis didn’t kill me.”

Aindreas so wanted to look away, but her gleaming eyes held his. “I know that now.”

“You tortured him.”

“Yes.”

“You nearly started a civil war.” I might still . “It seemed so clear what had happened.”

“I could have told you the truth, had you only come to me and asked.”

The duke was crying again. “I know,” he whispered.

“He’s dead now, the man who killed me.”

“What?”

“He’s here, in the god’s realm. I’ve seen him.”

The god’s realm. The Underrealm. Aindreas shivered, his breath catching, as if Bian himself had wrapped an icy hand around his throat.

“How?” he managed to ask.

“Tavis killed him, just as he promised he would.”

“Tavis did?”

“Yes. He swore that he would avenge me, and he has. He’s suffered enough, Father. He deserved a far better fate.”

“So did you,” Aindreas said, his voice hardening. He still couldn’t bring himself to forgive the boy, though for what he couldn’t say. “At least Tavis is alive. At least Javan still has his son.”

Brienne stared at him, saying nothing.

“Who was he?” the duke asked after some time, discomfitted by her silence. “Who was this man who murdered you?”

“An assassin, hired by the Qirsi. He posed as a servant during the feast that night. But you know all this already, don’t you, Father?”

“Not all of it, no.”

“Enough. I know what you’ve done. I gave you the chance to confess all to me just now, but you wouldn’t. Now I’m telling you: I know.”

She had been testing him, as if he were but a boy. He didn’t know whether to be offended or ashamed. He wanted to beg her forgiveness, and also to rail at her for speaking to him so. You ‘re still my daughter , he would have liked to say. You can’t possibly know what it’s like for a parent to lose a child . But he couldn’t bring himself to respond at all, at least not at first.

“How could you join them, Father? You’ve made yourself a traitor. You’ll bring disgrace to all who love you-Mother, Affery, Ennis.”

“How is it that you know all this?” he asked.

“We can see much from the god’s realm. And we speak among ourselves. You sent many Qirsi to the Underrealm before you found those who could help you join their conspiracy. They’ve told me a great deal.”

“Is it. . Have you suffered much?”

A faint smile touched her face and was gone. “Not much, no.”

“Is the god kind to you? Do you walk with the honored dead?”

“He forbids us from speaking of it with the living.” For the first time, finally, tears appeared on her cheeks, glistening like dew in the light of early morning. “You needn’t worry about me. You should think only of Mother and the others. You have to end this, Father.” How many times had he heard her speak those words in his mind? “You can’t help the conspiracy anymore.”

“It’s more complicated than you know.”

“Is it? I think you’re just frightened of disgracing yourself. I think you’re afraid to tell Mother the truth.”

“Disgrace is no small thing, Brienne. Shall I leave your brother to rule a dishonored house? Shall I doom Kentigern to centuries of disrepute and irrelevance?”

“If that’s what it takes, then yes.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes, Father, I do! You-”

“Enough!”

She winced, her entire body seeming to ripple, like a candle flame that sputters in a sudden gust of wind. For just an instant Aindreas feared that she would leave him.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Please, don’t go.”

She had lowered her gaze, as she often did when chastised. The assassin’s blade might as well have found the duke’s heart, so much did it ache as he looked upon her. “You were always headstrong as a child. Your mother said it was because you were so like me, but I think you favored her in every way.”

The wraith looked up and smiled, radiant and so alive he wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms, as he had when she was just a babe.

“There’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Do you remember when I was seven, and I went riding and fell off Cirde?”

“Yes, of course. You broke your arm in two places. Your mother was ready to prohibit you from riding again until you were past your Fating.”

“But you told her that all riders get thrown, that it would only serve to make me a better horsewoman.”

He grinned, his eyes stinging with tears at the memory. “I remember it well.”

“I never told you the reason I fell.”

“You said that Cirde reared for no reason.”

“I lied. I was standing in the saddle.”

His eyes widened. “Brienne!”

“I’d seen a rider do it during the Revel, and I wanted to try.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck. You could have-” He stopped. You could have been killed , he was going to say. Was it folly to speak so to a wraith? “It’s something I would have done,” he muttered instead.

“I know. I was more like you than you think, even then. And I was always proud of that.”

Aindreas nodded, unable to speak.