North Star Guide Me Home (31 page)

Delphine reached for the basket beside her bed, where the babe slept wrapped in soft blankets. After a moment, she let herself sink back into her pillows. ‘Of course. She’s yours, too, you know. Just … don’t let her out of your sight. And don’t keep her out long.’

‘I won’t,’ he said.

‘I … I’ve chosen a name,’ Delphine said. ‘The guard who was killed, one of them — he died for us, for her. His name was Illaro, they told me … so I’m calling her Illiana. To remember him.’

‘Illiana,’ he repeated. He couldn’t say it the way she did, with the musical trickling of vowels. It didn’t flow so easily with lips and tongue more accustomed to Ricalani. ‘Ilya,’ he said, stroking the baby’s cheek with one finger. He’d forgotten, since last he’d seen her, just how small she was.

When he made no move to pick her up, Sierra did it herself, gathering up the little bundle with a confident touch. ‘We won’t keep her long,’ she murmured to Delphine, but her eyes were already drifting closed again, a small smile on her lips.

Outside, Sierra turned to him. ‘You don’t want to carry her?’

He made a small and noncommittal noise. ‘She’s so small,’ he said. ‘And … I don’t like to have my hand tied up. If something happened … it makes me uneasy. I need to keep it free.’

The others were gathered in the chamber where Isidro had been waiting. A late supper had been laid out and Cam and Mira were already picking it over, but as Sierra and Isidro entered they abandoned the meal to swarm around the new babe.

‘By the Bright Sun herself,’ Mira said. ‘She truly is tiny. Far smaller than Cade.’ Looking down at the little creature, she bit her lip.

‘Does Rhia say she’s healthy?’ Cam said, glancing up at Isidro.

He nodded. ‘She seems strong enough. Just small. They say it’s likely why the birth was so fast.’ She hadn’t come through the day’s ordeal entirely unscathed — the stones on the road had scored her soft skin as Isidro tried to pick her up. Rhia had assured him they’d heal without scars.

‘Well, I suppose her mama’s not exactly tall, even if you are, and those first few months we were cursed near starving … I swear, Delphi still hasn’t forgiven me for making her eat those frogs. Still, if she’s got half the spirit of her ma and pa, she’ll be fine. There’s not many babes who can say they were born in a hedge and survived a kidnapping all in the same day.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Mira said, ‘and if Delphi’s milk is slow to come in, I can nurse her myself. Cade can spare a little for his sister.’

Cam let the two women huddle close over the baby, and with a glance at Isidro he backed away a few paces. ‘So,’ he said, ‘your hunches prove themselves again.’

There was no point in arguing. Isidro just shrugged. ‘I had a feeling something wasn’t right.’

‘It was the midwife, I hear. She’s dead, then?’

‘Yes, her and an accomplice. Those were all we found, but there were likely others.’

‘Neither of them mages?’

‘Nikala wasn’t. She’s been close to the household for weeks, I would have noticed. Anoa and Delphi did for the other without power, so I’d say not.’

‘Hmm. I think there must have been a mage somewhere, though … not that we’ll have a chance of catching them now.’

‘No,’ Isidro said. ‘What happened after I left?’

Cam reached for a wine cup he’d set down nearby. ‘Oh, they crumbled. They’ve agreed to withdraw from the north and give our people safe passage back home. The slaves we haven’t yet freed will be returned as well.’ He took a sip and shook his head, rubbing weary eyes. ‘I thought they were playing us, what with spies going after Delphi, so I started piling more demands on. Makaio offered his fleet to ship our folk home, and I demanded the Akharians pay him for it. By the Black Sun, at the end of it I was tempted to ask for a pony with golden ribbons in its mane, just to see what they’d do, but I didn’t want to keep Mira and Cade out too long after dark.’

‘So they’ve … they’ve given us everything?’ Isidro said.

Cam nodded. ‘Everything,’ he said, and took a long gulp.

Isidro saw a second cup that had been sitting beside the first, and snagged it for himself. It wasn’t wine, but something stronger. It left a trail of fire down his throat, a pleasant burn. ‘Tigers take them,’ he said. ‘They’re planning something.’

‘Mm,’ Cam nodded.

The Akharians couldn’t fight the Ricalanis here, they’d learnt that lesson, to their cost. In most conflicts, an army on their home ground would be at an advantage, but not in their case. Ricalan was in ruins. It would take years to rebuild and convince the remaining clans to fall behind Cam’s rule rather than casting their lot in with the Wolf Clan. After all, Cam was the last son of a despised royal line, backed by mages which for generations the north had been taught were demons in the flesh. The Akharians knew they couldn’t face Sierra head-on, but once they were back in Ricalan her greatest weapon — the massive destruction she could wreak when her power ran high — would threaten her own folk more than them. Whatever the Akharians had planned for them, they’d be facing it with no shelter, no supplies, and dubious allies. All at once, the liquor turned sour in Isidro’s stomach and the old scars on his back began to prickle and itch. ‘Any idea what they’re planning?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably. Makaio said he’d look into it. His king has taken a risk by getting involved. If we go down now, it’ll cost him. If he learns anything of value, he’ll share it.’

‘If,’ Isidro said.

‘Indeed. The Akharians will be playing this one close.’

Isidro glanced up, and found Mira and Sierra both watching them. The babe was sleeping, sweet and soft and perfect. All his family were together at last.

He downed the last of the cup. ‘Fine. Let them come. We’ll be ready, we’ll face them on our own ground. We’re going home.’

The village had an air of celebration. People were feasting, there was music and dancing in the streets. The news had spread like wildfire — they were going home.

The noise of it, the air of excitement and anticipation made Rasten uneasy. He wasn’t used to people being happy. It usually meant something very bad was about to happen.

He could have left, slunk away in the night to the quiet of the fields, but then he’d miss the news from the king’s encampment, word of ships being mustered to take them home, tales that the Akharians in the north were already withdrawing. Rasten had his doubts about that. If true, the order must have been given weeks ago. But what did he know? He’d been certain the Akharians wouldn’t surrender without a fight, and yet the negotiations had ended as soon as they’d begun.

There was another reason to stay close to the crowds. He was being watched. People had been trailing him for weeks, a constant, maddening presence. The throngs of people might make him uneasy, but the thought of being alone in the countryside and having these cursed stalkers come upon him as he slept was worse.

He was watching one now, as he lurked in an alleyway. A figure half-hidden in shadows skulked a few streets away around the village’s central square. He’d lost them for a while the previous day, but now they were back.

He’d dealt with one of these cursed shadows already, but clearly they had not yet learnt the lesson.

He left the shelter of the dripping eaves and skirted around the square, heading for the half-hidden figure. After only a few strides, they realised where he was heading, for the person then slunk back into the shadows. Rasten picked up his pace, not caring if he drew any attention. He’d made an effort to keep his face hidden, but the army was full of folk who’d recognise him on sight. If anyone tried to stop him, he’d let them see his face and they’d never dare block his path.

At the mouth of the alley he could feel power hanging in the air like incense. Another mage, then. That meant nothing … he’d left the last one bleeding out from a knife between her ribs, and he could do the same again. But would it be enough? If the last one hadn’t convinced them to leave him alone, what would doing the same again achieve? Perhaps he ought to make more of a spectacle of it, to prove the point?

With a hiss of disgust he decided against it. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth, and he wouldn’t be here much longer, anyway. Word had it that ships were already gathering in coves along the coast.

He caught the mage at the other end of the alley, just as they were about to slip out to the streets beyond, but he cast a shield across the street and the spy slammed into it before they could stop. Then Rasten was on them, twisting an arm up behind their back and wrapping his hand around their neck.

The skin was smooth beneath his fingers and the wrist was slender. Another woman, then. Rasten shoved her back down the alley and then into a little niche, an opening between two houses. There, he released her, shoving her against a wall and snatching the hood from her head.

She was quick — she got her free hand up in time to save her face from being slammed against the stone, and then spun to face him, her eyes wide and her lips parted in fright. Her power was running high, but she kept it bound beneath her skin.

Rasten looked her over with narrow eyes and pulled a knife from his belt.

The woman shrank back, raising her hands. ‘We mean you no harm.’

‘I’ve told you wretches to leave me alone,’ Rasten growled. ‘I thought you’d have learnt your lesson from the last one of you who didn’t return.’

‘The last one?’ the woman said. She kept her voice soft and even, but there was a tremor in her hands that betrayed her nerves. ‘She wasn’t one of ours.’

‘One of whose?’ he snarled.

‘She wasn’t Tomoan. Prince Makaio Trestrail sent me, sir, with an offer of shelter —’

Rasten snatched at her raised hand and with a yank he spun her around to pin her against the wall. He made a small nick on the back of her neck, drawing blood, and stripped her power away. It left her shuddering, knees buckling beneath her, with only his grip keeping her on her feet. ‘I don’t give a shit about your wretched prince,’ he growled in her ear. ‘Like I told your friend, he can choke on a pig’s cock for all I care.’

Her heart was pounding, throbbing like a drumbeat. ‘She … she told you she was Tomoan?’

‘The last one? She said she had an offer from your prince, just as you did.’

‘She … she was lying, sir. I know the one you mean, we saw you kill her. She’s Akharian. They must have known you’d never go to them of your own will, so they tried to trick you.’

Rasten clenched his teeth. Another tale, another story, they were playing him. But ten years in Kell’s dungeons had warped his instincts as well as his mind; he wasn’t sure, these days, just how much he could trust himself.

‘Our offer is sincere, I swear it on my life,’ the woman said. ‘My prince will give you a private estate, where you may live in peace, with as much or as little companionship as you wish. All he asks in return is that you share what you’ve discovered.’

With a silent snarl Rasten shoved her against the wall, driving the air from her lungs. ‘Save your breath,’ he growled. ‘Stay away from me, and tell your cursed friends to do the same. I’ll let you live this time, but the next one to cross my path won’t be so fortunate. And tell your prince to shove his private estate up his arse, I don’t want to hear about it. I’m going home, do you hear me? I’m going home.’

Sierra woke with her breath misting in the air and ice clinging to the blankets.

Home. It still hadn’t sunk in, despite the familiar tang of the spruce boughs and the scent of wet snow and damp earth that came with the first flush of spring. But the smell of the sea was making her tense and uneasy, even after the weeks spent sailing here to the ruins of Lathayan.
You’ll get used to it,
she told herself.

She’d never seen the sea before Kell took her prisoner. She’d spent nearly two years here, but this landscape was still foreign to her — in all that time, she’d never left the dungeons beneath the fortress. Kell had brought her here blindfolded and chained, and when they’d left to face the Akharian invasion she’d been bound the same way.

Sierra gazed at the tent roof, pulled low by the ice grown from their breath. The seasons were turning, the days growing warmer, but the snow that softened to slush during the day froze hard overnight and solidified to wicked spears of ice that hung from branches and eaves. They were still using the Akharian general’s tent, though it was hopelessly unsuited to the north. A single layer of cloth couldn’t hope to do the work of a double-layered tent of leather and fur, even with the seasons turning and a roaring stove to heat it. The morning air was bitterly cold.

She dressed while still under the covers, and wriggled her toes to check for numb spots as she pulled on the Akharian boots. They weren’t suited for the slick ice that formed at night, or the wet slush when the sun was high, but they were all she had. Within a month or two most of the snow would be gone, but for the isolated falls that could happen even at the height of summer.

Bundled up in her quilted coat, Sierra pulled her cap down over her ears and on quiet feet shuffled around to peek at the babies. They slept in a basket lined with sheepskins, snuggling together like puppies. Cade had lost one of his mittens. Sierra touched the soft, pink skin to be sure he hadn’t grown too cold and then pulled the mitten on again. Ilya slept sweetly nestled into the shaggy fur, her knitted cap pulled down to cover everything but her nose and mouth. Sierra kissed them both before turning to the stove to build up the fire.

Too impatient to wait for the kettle to boil, she heated it with a blast of power and poured herself a bowl of tea. It was only a brew of pine needles — pauper’s tea, not the exotic stuff from the far south — but she’d been craving it all winter, and it was bliss to breathe in the scent and feel its warmth in her belly. The only thing missing was a knob of salted butter slicking across the surface. Scouts had spotted goats and
yaka
outside the ruined city so there would be milk soon and butter and soft white cheese. And salmon from the rivers and rich dark earth to be turned and planted for the gardens …

Afterwards, she slipped outside to the grey and wintry world, so dark she had to squint through the gloom. The leaden sky hung close and heavy, with a steady wind blasting the hardened snow, frozen overnight to a thick, icy crust.

They were camped within the fortress walls, in the shadow of the keep. Sierra folded her arms across her chest and gazed around at the huge defensive walls and towers. In the half-light, they looked misshapen and broken. The Akharians had reduced the greatest stronghold in Ricalan to nothing but ruins, together with the surrounding city.

It was very strange to feel so foreign in a place in which she’d spent two years of her life — two years that had made her what she was now. Somewhere within the bulk of the great structure were Kell’s dungeons. Among all the hopes and dreams she’d had since she’d broken free of her chains, she’d never imagined coming back.

She set out across the crunching snow and was nearly at the palace steps when she heard boots on the ice behind her, turning to find a dark, looming shadow on her trail.

She felt herself grow tense as Isidro drew near. More than once, he’d tried to apologise for the things he’d said that night on the coast … but it seemed nothing but hollow platitudes when every word was true. She was a fool for thinking that he could come back to her after what she’d done. They might share a tent, eat from the same pots, breathe the same air, but he felt as far away as he’d ever been.

‘Where are you going?’ Isidro said.

Just as she’d feared months ago, he was perfectly civil. She glanced at the fortress. ‘I just … wanted to have a look around.’

‘This early, there won’t be much light to see by,’ he said.

Where I mean to go, daylight doesn’t reach.

Isidro guessed at her thoughts. ‘The dungeons?’

She nodded.

He watched her, head cocked to one side. ‘I … I’ll come with you, if you like.’

She thought of the lightless caverns, full of the smell of blood and despair, and trembled. ‘Actually … I think I’d be glad of the company.’

Side by side, they climbed the ice-covered steps to the charred and twisted wreckage of the main doors. Beyond them, the entry-hall was huge. Overall, the place was far larger than she’d imagined. The palace grounds could hold an army camp or festival crowd. Dozens of trees grew within the walls, branches bowed low under the weight of ice.

Passing through the cavernous entrance, they summoned mage-lights, and Sierra stopped as she craned her head back to peer at the vaulted ceiling, carvings on the dark stone lost to the gloom. One could fit a whole house into the space, or so it seemed to her. A gallery ran around the upper levels, a walkway where archers could look down on people below. Snow lay in deep drifts upon the floor.

Isidro continued a few paces on before glancing back with a quizzical look.

‘Um,’ Sierra said, looking around at the dark stone. ‘I … I don’t know where to go. I was blindfolded when they brought me here.’

‘If Kell took Leandra’s old cells, I know where they are,’ Isidro said. ‘Come this way.’

‘You know your way around?’

‘Mm. My father brought us here each year. We used to run wild through here. He wanted us to know the place like the backs of our hands. It’s the reason we made it out, after.’

Opposite the doors through which they’d come was another grand doorway leading deeper into the palace, flanked by pillars that still bore scraps of gold leaf; but Isidro led her away from them, through a smaller opening to their right and into a long, dark corridor, with their mage-lights the only illumination against the gloom.

Beyond the drifting snow there was nothing to hide the relics of death and destruction. Bare bones lay scattered across the floor, picked over by scavengers. When Isidro turned over a skull with his foot, it revealed a deep gash in the bone from the crown to eye socket. ‘They left the dead to rot,’ he said.

‘I suppose they didn’t care much beyond making sure the Mesentreians couldn’t take it back.’

‘Or maybe they didn’t have the supplies to hold it.’

After some distance through the dark halls, he led her down several flights of steps to a pair of huge, bronze-bound doors, a little battered where they had been pounded open, but still intact. They hung slightly ajar, with a gap just wide enough for a man to slip through.

‘This is the place,’ Isidro said.

It didn’t feel right. The place seemed too small, the doors too …
ordinary
to be the gateway that haunted her nightmares. Sierra drew a breath to steady herself, and slipped inside.

The moment she crossed the threshold, it hit her: the still, damp air; the smell of hot iron and charred flesh. For a moment, the world seemed to spin around her, and with a flush of power her mage-light blazed brighter, glowing like a tame sun.

Following at her heels, Isidro snorted as though at a foul smell, and his power flared as he cast a shield. ‘I thought it wouldn’t bother me so much now,’ Isidro said. ‘I guess not.’

Sierra led them through the short passage and made a left turn through another stout, metal-bound door. Isidro followed her in silence.

It was exactly as she remembered … a scarred and battered table and benches and wooden shelves fixed to the wall. The books were gone. Kell had taken the valuable ones with him and the Akharians had looted or burned the rest. She walked around the table, trailing one hand along its surface. This was where Rasten gave her lessons. She’d tried to refuse at first, but he beat the defiance out of her until she learnt to submit.

On one side of the chamber a short passage led to a stone-walled cell. Sierra nudged the door open with her boot, and tossed her mage-light inside. ‘This one was mine,’ she said.

Isidro peered in over her shoulder, taking in the bare walls and the simple wooden platform that served as a bed.

On the other side of the main chamber was a matching cell. Sierra had never seen inside it, but when she ventured down the passage to cast her light inside, she saw that it was the same as hers. ‘This one was Rasten’s.’

Then, swallowing hard, she turned to the door on the far side of the room. She’d always dreaded those doors. In the years this place had been her home, she’d avoided even glancing their way. She’d had nightmares about being dragged through them, even after she realised that Kell was profoundly disinterested in her and it was Rasten who was summoned to those chambers night after night.

Isidro seemed to read her thoughts. ‘You don’t have to go in there,’ he said.

‘No, it’s time to lay these cursed ghosts to rest.’ Steeling herself, she shoved the doors open.

Beyond was a comfortable suite of rooms, untouched by looters. First was a sitting room with velvet-cushioned couches arranged around an inlaid table. On the table, and on shelves and pedestals around the room, were statues of marble or gilded metal gleaming richly in the unnaturally steady light. Sierra saw Isidro examine one, only to recoil with a hiss of disgust. They were human figures, exquisitely sculpted, in contortions of agony, faces twisted into incoherent pain.

As Sierra watched, Isidro picked up a piece of snowy, silken marble and hurled it at the wall. It shattered in a rain of fragments.

In silence, Sierra crossed to the doorway covered by a curtain of red velvet with cloth-of-gold ties, mouldering away in the absence of the furnaces’ heat. She peeled it aside to glimpse the room beyond: the bed with four square, solid posts; inlaid chests around the walls; a gilded circle inlaid into the floor; and a heavy beam hanging from the ceiling from chains. Beside it, a stout wooden rack outfitted with leather straps.

She let the curtain fall and left the chambers with Isidro at her heels.

‘They looted the rest of the place,’ she said, ‘but not here.’

‘Can you blame them?’

She didn’t reply as she led him back to the entry-hall. ‘The rest is through here. I need to see it, Issey. I need to be sure … you don’t have to stay.’

‘No, I’ll come with you.’

He was standing so close she had to tip her head back to meet his gaze, but his closeness and his warmth was a comfort. ‘Let’s be quick, then.’

She led him in a swift circuit of the cells, past the workrooms with their racks and shelves of implements, and even visited the crude kitchen. Last, she checked the storerooms where the medicines were kept, but with one breath of the mouldy, green scent she knew that nothing within was worth salvaging.

She emerged again to find Isidro gazing into one of the cells. ‘My father was down here. He was one of the first who went to Kell. Cam and I cursed near ended up here, too.’ He shook himself, and lifted his head. ‘What’s that noise? Sounds like … waves.’

‘I’ll show you,’ Sierra said. ‘This way.’

Between the storerooms and the kitchen was another passage with an old handcart near the entrance. Sierra squeezed around it and led Isidro through to another door, swollen with damp. She shouldered it open with a jolt of power.

‘By the Black Sun herself,’ Isidro said as he followed her onto the loose, sliding stones beyond the door.

It was a sea cave, a little bubble within the rock, sunless but with a sliver of rocky shore. The rest was full of black oily water, and the lapping waves had deposited a rime of ice, milky and slick.

‘This is where we dumped the bodies,’ Sierra said. ‘There are eels down there — great big things, thick as my waist. I hope the filthy creatures starved. It never freezes over — the hot springs under the palace must connect to it, I think.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Isidro said. ‘But I doubt the eels starved. Beasts that big must have more hunting grounds than this.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said with a sigh, and then shook herself. ‘I don’t want anything salvaged from here.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I agree.’

‘But what do we do? Haul everything out and burn it?’

‘Could do. Might be good for folk to see it destroyed.’

Sierra bit her lip. ‘Maybe …’

As they reached the entrance, she found herself remembering the last time Rasten had brought her through these doors, and how fiercely she’d prayed never to see this place again. Well, it wasn’t too late to grant that wish. She turned to Isidro. ‘I was sure you’d brought me to the wrong place. I remembered it being only a short walk until we were outside.’

‘There’s another entrance nearby, but I wanted to come through the halls to see what had been done to the place. Here, I’ll show you.’ He took her back up the steep stairs before taking another turn to lead her out into the fortress grounds. It had grown lighter since they’d ventured underground, the sky more white now than grey. Nearby, Sierra could hear the sea ice groaning and the distant sound of lapping waves.

She turned back to Isidro. ‘I know. I’ll burn it, like Demon’s Spire, like the fort on the Greenstone. I’ll entomb the cursed place, and then we can forget about it, once and for all.’

Cam shrugged his coat up around his ears as he looked out over the city from the top of the gatehouse.
His
city, he reminded himself. He might not have sought it, but it was his now.
By the Black Sun, I hope I know what I’m doing.

He’d sworn a vow once that he’d never seek the crown. But when Mira first placed his son in his arms, he’d abandoned the vow, and if the Gods cursed him for it, so be it. Refusing his birthright would only pass it to the little lad and make him a target for anyone who wanted a veneer of legitimacy when they made a play for the throne. If breaking a solemn oath was what it took to keep his son from being made a pawn in the game of politics and war, then he’d break a thousand.