Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow 3)

Sollis rose, placing a hand on the mad master’s shoulder as he continued to mutter to himself. “By assent of this conclave,” Sollis said. “I speak for my Order until Aspect Arlyn is recovered or proved dead. We will follow the queen’s course.”

“As will the Fourth Order,” Brother Hollun stated.

Aspect Dendrish slumped into his seat, waving a plump hand in either dismissal or assent. It was Master Benril who spoke, standing to regard them with a grim visage. “War is ever the folly of the ignorant. But I have seen much to convince me some wars must be fought, to the bitterest end if need be. Our Order, such as it is, will support this endeavour.”

The Second Order was represented by a pair of sisters from their mission in Andurin, both tired from the journey and clearly overawed by the occasion. They apparently had no knowledge of their Aspect’s fate though rumours told of all their brothers and sisters perishing when their House burned to rubble. They conferred for a second before the older of the two confirmed their agreement in a strained voice.

“Aspect?” Sollis asked Elera.

Her smile had faded completely now, her face, always so open and bright as to defy signs of age, now told of a tired woman of middling years with eyes that had seen too much. She stood in silence for some time, hands clasped together and face downcast. “So much has changed so quickly,” she said eventually. “So many certainties overthrown in the space of a few months. Lord Vaelin is right to speak of our past crimes, for we are guilty of grievous errors. I myself said nothing when my brightest pupil was taken to the Blackhold for speaking against the desert war. There is blood on our hands. But I fear what crimes await us should we take this course. Every day people come to my Order for healing but burning with a hatred I have not seen in all the troubled years to beset this Realm. When the queen takes them across the ocean, what manner of justice will she ordain?”

“I am Battle Lord of the Queen’s Host,” Vaelin said. “And will allow no violence to be visited on those who do not raise arms to oppose us.”

She raised her gaze, smiling at him once more, but with something behind her eyes she hadn’t shown him before: regret. I delivered you, she had told him once. Perhaps she wonders what she pulled into the world? “I will trust your word, Vaelin, as I always have.” She turned to the others, speaking formally. “The Fifth Order pledges to support the queen’s course.”

• • •

He said farewell to Reva at the south gate, pulling her close to plant a kiss on the top of her head, finding himself both surprised and heartened when she returned the embrace. “No doubts?” he asked her as she drew back. “No hesitation in following the queen’s orders?”

“Doubts I have aplenty,” she replied. “But that’s nothing new. At Alltor I saw enough to convince me this fight is to the death. They won’t stop, so neither can we.”

“And will your people see it that way?”

Her expression grew sombre, her tone soft with reluctant admission. “They will when they hear the Blessed Lady speak with the Father’s voice.”

She mounted up and rode off with an escort of House Guards. Watching her go, he was struck by a sudden sense of loss, a knowledge he might never see her again.

“My lord.” He turned to find himself confronted with one of Lyrna’s ladies, the taller one with dark eyes, though her name escaped him. “The queen requests your presence at the palace.”

Her eyes flicked to the left, a slight frown of unease on her brow. He followed her gaze to where the Gifted folk from the Reaches had established themselves in a half-ruined wineshop. A couple of passing Realm Guard were recovering their composure, clearly victims of Lorkan’s love of surprising the non-Gifted, the young man bowing in apparently sincere apology as Cara smothered a laugh in the background. Lorkan caught Vaelin’s eye and gave a weak smile before turning and walking to a shadowed corner where he seemingly blinked out of existence.

He turned back to the lady, finding her narrow gaze still fixed on the shadow where Lorkan had disappeared. “Forgive me, my lady,” he said, recapturing her attention. “I don’t believe I know your name.”

“Orena, my lord.” She bowed again. “In truth, Lady Orena Al Vardrian, by the queen’s good graces.”

“Vardrian? From south of Haeversvale?”

“My grandmother was from Haeversvale, my lord.”

He was about to inform her that they most likely shared some blood but the evident discomfort in the woman’s face gave him pause. She clearly didn’t relish the prospect of remaining so close to the Gifted and there was a tenseness to her demeanour that discouraged further conversation. “These people are our allies,” he said, nodding to the wineshop. “They offer no threat.”

Her face took on a bland neutrality and she bowed. “The queen waits upon your attendance, my lord.”

She was in the palace grounds surveying the part-completed marble relief carved by Master Benril. A short way off the Lady Davoka stood alongside another Lonak woman, younger and considerably less tall. The younger woman straightened at sight of Vaelin, her face curious, as if voicing an unspoken question.

“My lord,” Lyrna greeted him brightly. “How went the conclave?”

He was unsurprised by her knowledge. She had all of her father’s gift for accruing intelligence and more subtle ways of exploiting it. “The Faith seeks to rebuild itself,” he said. “And will, of course, support your endeavour with all their remaining strength.”

“And Lady Reva?”

“Also unrelenting in pursuit of your purpose, Highness.”

She nodded, her gaze still fixed on the marble relief. Although it was unfinished Vaelin found the carvings remarkably lifelike, the expressions and poses of the figures possessed of a precision and verisimilitude surpassing even Benril’s other work. The faces of the Volarian soldiery and Realm folk alike were riven with all the fear, rage and confusion of people truly faced with the horrors of war.

“Remarkable isn’t it?” Lyrna observed. “And yet Master Benril has formally petitioned me to have it destroyed.”

“No doubt it serves as a painful reminder of his enslavement.”

“But in years to come, perhaps we will all require something to remind us of what provoked our course. I think I’m minded to leave it as it is. If the master’s temper cools in time, he may be persuaded to finish it, to his own design of course.”

Lyrna raised a hand to call Davoka and the other Lonak woman forward. “This is Kiral of the Black River Clan. She has a message for you.”

• • •

“You speak my tongue very well.” He had taken her to his father’s house where he and his sister made a home of sorts amongst the less damaged rooms. Alornis was absent, gone to the docks on some errand, probably keen to paint the panorama of ships crowding the harbour. They sat together under the sheltering oak in the yard, its mighty branches bare of leaves as winter’s chill grew deeper by the day.

“She knew your tongue,” Kiral said. “So I know it.”

He had heard the story from Lyrna and could scarcely credit it: a soul possessed by one of the Ally’s creatures and now freed. And a singer with a message. Yet somehow he knew the truth of it, just by looking into her face he knew she heard a song and found himself shamed by the jealousy it stirred.

“She remembered you,” the Lonak girl went on. “You barred her from a kill. Her hatred was great.”

He remembered Sister Henna’s enraged, hissing face as he held her to the wall. “You possess her memories?”

“Some. She was very old, though not so old as her brother and sister, nor so deadly. She feared them and hated them in equal measure. I have the healing arts she learned in the Fifth Order, the rites performed by a priestess somewhere in the far south of the Alpiran Empire, the knife skills of a Volarian slave girl sent to die in their spectacles.”

“Do you know when she was first taken?”

“Her early memories are a mist of confusion and fear, chief among them the sight of mud huts burning under a broad night sky.” Kiral paused to give an involuntary shudder. “The vision fades and she hears his voice.”

“What does he say?”

She shook her head. “She always shrank from the memory, preferring to dwell on her many lifetimes’ worth of murder and deceit.”

“I’m sorry for you. It must . . . hurt.”

Kiral shrugged her slender shoulders. “When I dream, mostly.” She looked up at the branches of the great oak above her head, a small smile coming to her lips. “There,” she said, pointing to a wide fork near the main trunk. “You would sit there, watching your father groom his horses.” Her smile faded. “He was afraid of you, though you never knew it.”

He stared up at the oak for a time. His memories of playing in its arms had always been happy, but now he wondered if his child’s eyes had seen more than he recalled. “Your song is strong,” he told her.

“Yours was stronger. I can hear its echo. To lose such strength must be hard.”

“As a younger man I feared it, but in time I knew it as a gift. And yes, I miss it greatly.”