David Durham - The Sacred Band

“You did not give him freedom,” Aliver said. He stared at Menteus Nemre. The man had noticed. He stared back. “You did not give him the respect an equal deserves. I suspect he would like that more than anything else. I suspect they would all want that. I may be wrong, Devoth, but I believe that if I shouted the truth of your mortality to them right now, you would not have one army facing you. You would find two surrounding you. I suspect that your own army would slaughter you with more relish than anyone standing behind me.”

Aliver brought his eyes back to Devoth and asked, “Should I ask them?”

L ater that day, after Devoth said no, he did not want Aliver to ask Menteus Nemre or any of the divine children that question, after he had conferred with the rest of the Auldek and brought back the answer Aliver had longed to hear, after he had listened to all the oaths to peace that he could and when he believed it had really, truly been achieved, with protection for any Acacians remaining in Ushen Brae as well, Aliver asked if Mena would accept the rest. There was still a long line of Auldek waiting to accept the peace. It would take some time.

She said she would complete the work. She took his hand as he rose and held it a time, as if she were rehearsing the words she would say to him. In the end, she only repeated, “I will complete this.”

Aliver parted with her casually, as if he just wished to go outside and walk among the troops. He did that. There was much rejoicing among them, and he wanted to feel some of it. But when he felt the fingers of death brush his shoulder, he did not run from them. They had been near for a long time, and he could not possibly begrudge them their due now, not after the day they had just allowed him to complete. His time had come. He hoped that Mena would not be angry with him for not saying a more formal good-bye, but he thought she would know that he had been doing that with every action he took since being freed from Corinn’s spell. Better that she take over from him, as that was what the future held for her anyway.

He walked for as long as he could, greeting soldiers and touching hands, until he managed to slip down a quiet lane of tents. He lay down on a cot under a shelter. And then, on second thought, he rose and pulled the cot out underneath the sky. He watched the heavy blanket of clouds, so near to them in the darkening sky. When the first snowflakes began to fall, he closed his eyes and felt their cold, delicate kisses on his cheeks. On his eyelids and lips.

He opened his eyes once more, stirred by a commotion near at hand. He heard Po’s roar come down from up above. He saw the dragon’s dark shadow pass above, and then heard the answering calls from his siblings. His eyes almost fluttered closed, but then a man yelled. There came the crash of something being knocked over, and then a series of snaps, the clink of metal rings and grunts of agitation.

Aliver understood what was happening before he knew why he understood. Po flew riderless above, calling on his kin to join him. The other three were tearing off their harnesses. He heard their wings unfurl, that loud concussion of clicking that was like nothing else in the world, and then swoosh as those great wings grabbed the air and lifted them upward. He heard the panic in people’s voices, but he did not feel it. Corinn had written, As long as I live they will be true to us. After that, she said, they would be different. Listening to them chatter to one another as they rose into the snow-heavy night, Aliver knew that change had begun, and he knew that his sister had gone before him to the afterdeath.

“Corinn…” He had been so consumed by his own work, that he had almost forgotten her battle with the Santoth. He remembered it now, and knew that she had been triumphant.

Eyes closed again, he lay there a long time, feeling the snow build a blanket atop him, thanking his sister. It was not just her saving the world from the Santoth that he was grateful for. He thanked her for himself, for allowing him to know, in the end, that she was wonderful, that he loved her completely, without reservation. As a brother should.

A little later he stopped feeling the snow. He stopped feeling anything. He had a thought that would have made him laugh, except he no longer had the lips to laugh with. Aliver Akaran, he thought, look what you’ve done. You’ve made it so that they’re going to start calling you the Snow King again. He did not really mind. He had always liked the ring of the name. Before, he just had not deserved it. Now, perhaps he had earned it.

The flutes played the noon hour. They started high in Acacia, at the top of the palace, and then the tune cascaded down toward the lower town. Beautiful. A sound that Mena had never really believed she would hear again. She stood on the balcony of Corinn’s offices, amazed at the view of the island in the brilliance of the spring light. How was it even possible that a sound so wonderful lived in this world, in the same one that had just been filled with the din of war, with arctic winds howling and men and women crying in pain and rage? It did not seem possible that the images that had comprised her life the last half year could be real if this was real; or that the view out across the spires and down toward the glistening sea could be anything but a dream if that other version of life was a reality. She would need to spend a great deal of time coming to terms with this and finding a way to face it alone.

She was home, but Aliver was not. Corinn never would be. Dariel and Melio had gone out of the Known World and nobody could say a word about their fate. She was alone. At least Aliver’s body worked its slow way home, escorted by the army that loved him. His body, encased in a simple casket, took one last meandering trip around the Mainland. Mena hoped Aliver would have welcomed that. She thought he would. She thought he would like it very much that his body was being carried the entire way on the shoulders of former slaves who had just weeks before stood in the army that opposed him. So many of them had chosen to stay and had begged for the honor of bearing Aliver home to Acacia. There was a rightness to that, a closing of very old wrongs.

Yes, she thought. He would have liked that very much.

Hearing someone enter, Mena stepped back into the room. Rhrenna, her sister’s former secretary, stood at attention, a collection of papers held to her chest. She bowed her blond head. “I have news,” she said, “from Alecia.”

Of course she did. Rhrenna had nothing if not news. Since Mena’s return to the island a few days before, the Meinish woman had acted as if she were Mena’s personal assistant. She had been a great help, really, leading the princess through her own palace as if she were a visitor new to it. Perhaps she was. Perhaps she had not come back the same and would never feel the same. Or perhaps, with Aliver and Corinn both gone, Acacia itself was not the same.

“I would rather you had news from the Other Lands,” Mena said. “One fair word about Dariel or Melio would be all the news I need for some time.”

“Still nothing from there, I’m afraid. This news, though… Your Majesty, perhaps you should sit down.”

Rhrenna had been nothing but courteous to her. She had not called her Majesty before, though.

“Why, do I look so ill as that?” Mena glanced down at the dress she wore, and nearly started. A dress! A garment of light cotton that flowed all the way to the stone floor, pressed and clean, embroidered with gold thread. This will take some getting used to, she thought. It had been a good thing for her to return directly to Acacia on Elya. She needed time to remember how not to be at war, how to wear a dress and wake in a mild clime and not think constantly about the lives that depended on each decision she made.