Celia Friedman: Crown of Shadows

The author would like to thank the following people for their help in making this book possible:

Neil Rackham, for sharing his volcano;

Gene Fisher, for sharing his horses;

Helen Zebarth, for fielding some very strange medical questions;

and Shirley Maddox, for the most precious gift of all: time.

There was lipstick on his cheek. He could feel it when the wind brushed by, a spot of waxy moisture on his cold-parched skin. Red, he thought. Crimson. He recalled it vaguely, distantly, in the same way he remembered its wearer. Lips. Breasts. Thighs. Parts of a body, divorced from the whole. Flesh without a soul. He tried to remember her name and found that he couldn’t. Was that his fault or hers? What kind of woman would cast her net for the heir of Merentha, when the very name of his family had become an epithet for disaster?

Ahead of him the castle loomed, cold stone arches framing the night in moonlit numarble. Once there would have been lamps in the windows, a crackling fire in the great hearth, the smell of mulled cider seeping out into the courtyard. Once there would have been servants aplenty, running up to greet him as he made his wee-hour approach to the great estate. Once Samiel himself might have stood in the doorway, scowling at his younger brother as he dismounted, prepared to lecture him until dawn on matters of propriety. Or Imelia might have been waiting, equally concerned but gentler in her castigation. Or Betrise, broad-shouldered and belligerent.

Not any more. Not ever again.

All gone.

He dismounted-or tried to-but he was drunk enough that he stumbled as he struck the ground, and he barely kept himself from getting trampled as he disentangled his booted foot from the stirrup. He leaned against the animal for a moment, breathing heavily.

This was always the worst time, these first few minutes when he came home and and it hit him how absolutely alone he was. While he was in town he could pretend that nothing was wrong-wining and dining and womanizing with a vengeance, forcing his flesh into that accustomed mode as if somehow the spirit could be forced to follow suit-but when he came to the castle gate all his illusions dissolved like smoke, and he was left with nothing. Absolutely nothing. The emptiness inside him was so vast that no woman’s caress could begin to fill it, the memories so horrible that no amount of alcohol could ever dull their impact.

He managed to get the horse stripped of its saddle and set it free to roam. He knew he should do more for it, but that duty-like everything else—was too much for him now. There were hay and water in the stables, and the horse knew how to get to both. The great wall that had been erected around the estate during the war of 846 was now crumbling, but it would still serve as a pasture fence. That was enough. It would have to be enough. He lacked the strength—and the will-to do any more.

Why was I left alive? he despaired. It wasn’t the first time he had asked that question. Samiel could have carried on. Samiel would have mourned and raged ... and then he would have picked up the pieces of his life and carried on, somehow. Building new memories. Learning to forget. They’d had such strength in them, all of his family ... all except Andrys. The playboy. The gambler. The black sheep of the family. Why had he alone been spared? Why was it that on that terrible night when his family had been slaughtered, he alone had been allowed to survive?

You know why, an inner voice chided. You don’t want to understand it, but you do.

He forced his mind away from that question as he fumbled with the latch. Too painful. The only way he could get through the empty days was to try to forget, to fight the memories back in whatever way he could. Even if that meant alcohol. Even if that meant blackout. Even if that meant other drugs, illegal drugs, that might calm the terror in his soul for a moment and grant him a simulacrum of peace. Anything that worked.

He was dying.

He considered that thought as he walked through the great hall of the castle, staring up at the portraits that flanked him on both sides. A man could die slowly, if conditions were right. The life could seep out of him gradually, a little bit each day, until at last there was nothing left of him but a shell of flesh, cold and colorless as a corpse. He looked up at the portraits of the other Survivors-seven of them, whose names and dates he had learned like a catechism in his youth—and shivered. Seven men who had survived the death of their families, and lived to renew the family line. How had they done it? Why had they done it? How could a man put such a thing behind him, and take a wife and sire children and start all over again, as if nothing had happened? He laughed shortly, mirthlessly. Whatever magical strength they’d had, he sure as hell lacked it. He lacked even an understanding of its nature.

You picked the weakest one this time, he thought. As if the family’s destroyer could hear him. The least deserving. Maybe he could hear, at that. Maybe he was aware of all their thoughts, and had chosen Andrys to survive because somewhere, deep inside him, he saw—

What?

Don’t kid yourself, he thought bitterly. There’s nothing of value in you, and he knows it. He looked up at the portraits of the other seven, one after another, and saw all too clearly what quality he shared with them. If only he didn’t see! If only he didn’t understand——

With a moan he staggered to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink, from the nearest full bottle at hand. Sweet cordial, his late brother’s vice. He threw it back quickly, wincing as the syrupy stuff slid down his tongue, trying not to taste it. Alcohol was his elixir now, his solace, and its flavor was irrelevant. If he could figure out how to pour it straight into his bloodstream, he’d do that and save himself the glasses.

A shadow seemed to move suddenly in the corner of the room. Startled, he dropped his glass. It shattered on the numarble floor, spraying the sticky cordial on his feet; the sugary smell of norange liqueur filled the room. A small accident, but it was suddenly more than he could handle. He felt the tears start to flow free, and with them memories from earlier in the day. Her voice. Her body. Her scorn. God in Heaven! How much more merciful it would have been if he had been utterly emasculated, instead of this half-life in which the memory of slaughter might or might not unman him at a crucial moment. In which he could perform just often enough to get his hopes up, just well enough for him to convince himself that maybe, just maybe, the healing had finally begun ... and then suddenly the room he was in would be splattered with blood, and the body he caressed so desperately would seem like that of a corpse, bodily parts disassociated from one another and from their owner.... He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. It had to end. God, it had to end. One way or another. How long could a man go on like this?

Until you end it, an inner voice whispered. There’s no other way. And how much would it hurt? You’re already dead, aren’t you? Like the rest of your family. He killed them fast and he killed you slow, but he killed you all the same.