Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

“You have brought me no other answer, Valen.”

“Because it has lived inside you all this time, lord. Behind a mask. Hope is enough.”

He raked his fingers through his dark hair. “I would condemn us all.”

“Then we will die with love,” said a soft voice behind us. “And honor. And faithfulness. But I don’t believe we will die. I watched these Harrowers just now, and they are frightened, too, misled by a glamor—despair masquerading as hope. You are their king, Osriel of Evanore. Save them.”

When Elene knelt beside him, it was almost as if I heard the earth heave another great sigh. Or perhaps that was only me, watching surprise and weariness unmask his love at last.

O sriel stood beside the sinkhole and called on those he had named to attend him. And so did every one of the gray phantoms in the cloud turn their empty eyes toward him. How he bore the cold weight of their attention, I could not imagine, for when I, by chance, met the gaze of only one, it placed a burden of lead and earth upon my shoulders.

The prince removed his gold armrings and held them in the scarlet light, and the phantoms’ eyes burned red and gold, so one could believe they listened. “Hear my commands and obey,” he cried. “I charge you, by the bond I hold, find all who bear arms on this field of woe—your brothers in war, whole or wounded—and speak to each soul what you know of death and life. And at the ending, give this message: A new reign of law and justice shall come to Navronne with this new year. Do this, and I count your service to me ended. Duty done, make your way through the world as you will and find those whom you would comfort at your parting from earthly life, and when the sun touches the sky, be gone to your proper fate. Perficiimus.”

The gray phantoms vanished from behind the cloud warriors, and an unsettling energy infused the air and land, like the building tensions of a thunderstorm. All the anger and confusion I had felt here was turned to eagerness. To hunting. Never had I been so glad I did not bear a blade. I did not want to hear what they would speak. I’d seen and heard enough of death and life.

Voushanti knelt at Osriel’s feet and spoke what none of us could hear. Osriel held out his hand. Voushanti kissed it, then handed over his sword and ax. And then the mardane turned to me, expressionless. I nodded, and he walked out of the pit and into the night. I did not think we would see him ever again.

Osriel knelt at the pit, his eyes closed as if he could hear his messengers. Elene kept vigil with him, her hand upon his shoulder. Philo formed up his three comrades at the foot of the cart track, weapons laid on the ground at their feet. The light of the votive vessels dimmed and faded. And so we awaited the end of the world.

Accounts differ about what happened on that winter solstice. Some say Iero’s angels visited the homes of the dead all over the kingdom and brought them heaven’s solace, while the Adversary himself visited wrath upon Sila Diaglou’s legions, showing them the paths of hell and sending them home repentant.

Some say the Danae brought forth Eodward’s Pretender, another young prince fostered in Danae realms. The guardians left him in the place of Osriel the Bastard, who had made one too many bargains with Magrog the Tormentor and was carried off to the netherworld. That this Pretender named himself Osriel was only to avoid the tricky business of Eodward’s will. Two copies of that document came to light with the new year, both proclaiming Eodward’s youngest son King of Navronne. All agreed that the first day of that winter dawned with a hope Navronne had not felt in living memory.

I know only what I saw.

When Osriel turned away from his enchantments, exhausted and at peace, Elene placed his hand upon her belly and whispered in his ear. It was the right time, when life displayed its truest mingling of joy and grief. For, of course, he had promised his firstborn to the Danae, and he could not break such fragile alliance as might come from this night’s work. They clung to each other for a while; then he donned his armor and became Navronne’s king, and Elene donned her fairest courage and became Navronne’s queen.

I saw no more than that. Saverian found me slumped in the corner of the grotto, trying to find my way back to Aeginea, and offered to sew up the great hole in me instead. Once assured that the blood soaking her garments was soldiers’ blood, not hers, I mumbled that my wound would surely heal of itself, and that her stitches would make my fine sea grass look like brambles, and that I had urgent matters to attend if I could just remember what they were. But indeed I came near collapsing on her boots from the great gouts of blood that would not stop oozing, though I felt shamed when I considered how Osriel had bled near a sun’s turning and was yet spinning out enchantments and traipsing off to meet with his brother Bayard.

Evidently the prince persuaded Bayard to round up the hardened elements of the Harrower legions and Perryn’s men, while Renna’s household garrison and the survivors of Boedec’s and Zurina’s legions gathered the Evanori dead for proper rites on the next day. After what Bayard’s men had seen happening in the sky over Dashon Ra that night, they were quite compliant. Many had been visited by the spirits of friends or brothers and had come to believe that Osriel had sent these spirits as a warning and a mercy to keep faith—as, indeed, he had. But I didn’t see any of that. Saverian had taken me in hand.

“I must go back,” I said thickly. It was very awkward after the physician had just spent most of an hour with her hands in my blood and flesh, and had given me some lovely potion to dull the wicked fire in my side.

“I suppose the ceilings are coming down on you again,” she said, emptying yet another basin of bloody water down her drainpipe.

“Not too awful as yet. No, it’s Kol.” As sense returned, the remembrance of Tuari’s impending judgment had me frantic.

She set her basin carefully on her table, as I slid my feet to the floor and put some weight on them to see if my legs would hold me up. “They’re still dancing, aren’t they?” she said.

“Until dawn. I doubt I’ll be allowed anywhere close. Kol and Stian are already at risk of ruin for bringing me to the Canon.” There was also the matter of Kennet. For all the Danae knew, I had killed him. I had to explain. Fear more than blood loss threatened to buckle my knees.

“Go, then,” she said. “I’ll be here if ever you choose to return to Renna.”

As I touched her narrow face, drawing her worry into a rueful smile, a cheerful determination captured my soul. “None shall keep me away. There are things that even Renna’s powerful house mage has yet to learn,” I said, grinning at the thought. “I do think the gods intend me to see to her instruction.”

I slogged back up the rock gate stair to Dashon Ra as fast as I could, holding my bandaged side. Saverian had come up with another cloak—I seemed to be shedding them like snakeskins—and chausses, so I was able to walk unremarked through the grisly business of battle’s aftermath. The snow fell gently now, laying a soft blanket on the cold faces of the dead. The waning night yet squirmed and wriggled uncomfortably, and I imagined souls passing on their missions of warning and mercy.

Once out on the hillside, I thought to shift, but my steps were halted by two weary veterans hauling a bloodstained cart loaded with weapons and armor. “I’ve heard Boedec had her, then lost her,” said one. “She can slip through a man’s fingers.”

My ears pricked, and I turned to listen.

“Harrowers turned on her,” said the other man. “Ran her off. I’d love to get my hands on her—slaughtered my whole village, she did.”