North Star Guide Me Home (35 page)

Isidro closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. All of a sudden he had a pounding headache. ‘Cam, look, I … I just …’

Rasten’s power had run out now, it seemed — the flames had died away to a few flickering strands that danced around him like sprites, and the strain of holding the shield was only making Isidro’s head hurt worse. He let it melt away, and realised abruptly that the throne room had filled with people, despite his order to keep them out.

There was a ripple of murmurs as Isidro’s inky black shield melted away to reveal the scene: Cam still with his sword drawn and Rasten huddled on the marble, a pitiful, broken shape.

As soon as the barrier dropped, one small figure in the crowd darted forward, throwing herself down at Rasten’s side. It was one of the mages, a woman called Lavani. Only a short time ago, Isidro had seen her up in the workrooms before Sierra called him away.

‘Your grace,’ she said, ‘please show him mercy. I know he’s done terrible things, but if it weren’t for him I’d be a slave still, or dead. He set me free, your grace, and he gave me the strength to fight. I know that doesn’t make up for what he’s done, but please, have mercy.’

For a long moment, Cam could do nothing but stare at her. As her words died away, one of the guardsmen stepped forward with a rattle of mail. He knelt beside the young woman, setting his spear and shield down with a clatter. ‘Your grace, have mercy. For the sake of those of us he set free, please spare him.’

Somewhere in the hall, another guard began to stamp the butt of his spear against the stone. The sound spread, swelling, as other guards followed suit and the gathered folk stamped their feet in time. More came forward, kneeling in uneven ranks and raising the cry,
Mercy, your grace, have mercy.
Slowly, Rasten lifted his head, looking around with bewilderment.

As more men and women and even children came forward, Isidro saw Cam looking around with a deep frown. He pulled Sierra close to murmur something in her ear, and then turned to leap up onto the dais. For a time, he let the chant go on, until at last he raised his sword for attention. After a few moments, the noise died away to an expectant silence, though in the entry-hall and out on the steps the chant carried on.

‘I doubt the wisdom of this,’ Cam called out, his voice ringing across the hall, ‘but when so many souls call for clemency, together with my own kin, I must listen. Very well, I’ll spare his life, with one proviso. That he pledges obedience to the crown and swears not to harm anyone under my rule. But mark my words, all of you — this is not forgiveness.’ He levelled his sword at Rasten. ‘This man has done more harm than you can know. Remember, when you go to your furs tonight, that you haven’t just spared the man who freed you — you’ve spared a man who slaughtered thousands, a torturer and a rapist who’s done every bit as much harm as the Slavers he freed you from. Remember that, and pray that you’ve made the right choice. By all the Gods, I will be.’

‘Issey, are you sure you’re alright with this?’

Isidro felt very strange, as cold and numb as if he’d been turned to stone. Cam laid a hand on his arm and Isidro flinched back. His brother’s touch felt hot enough to burn. Cam backed away when Isidro recoiled.

He remembered well the days when any touch sent his instincts screaming of danger, but Isidro had thought that time long behind him.

Cam drew a ragged breath. ‘Look, brother, if you want him dead, just say so. I’ll see it done, I swear —’

‘No! By all the Gods, Cam, you heard those folk. If he dies there’ll be a riot —’

‘I don’t care what they want. I’m talking about you. After what happened that winter … by all the Gods, I swore I’d kill him. This seems to be a year of breaking oaths, but I’ll keep this one if you want it, and I don’t care what it costs me.’

Isidro shook his head. ‘No. Don’t do it. You’ll just be finishing Kell’s work.’

Cam turned away with a shake of his head. ‘If a man takes a spear to the gut, the kindest thing to do is cut his throat and get it over with. I’m not convinced this is any different, Issey, I’m truly not.’

‘It’d break Sirri.’

‘Maybe. But he’ll likely just hang himself with a blanket anyway, and that’d wound her just as badly. If he truly wants to die, we won’t be able to stop him, however many guards we post. He looked to me like a man set on the grave.’ They were in a small chamber behind the throne room, with the noise of the crowd still echoing through the halls.

There was a sideboard near the door, and Cam rummaged through it to pull out a bottle, and took a cautious swig. Isidro almost stopped him, but decided that the chances of a spy planting a poisoned bottle at random was too small to be considered. When Cam offered him the bottle, he took a pull himself.

‘For months I’ve been thinking we’d have to hunt him down sooner or later,’ Cam said. ‘I thought he couldn’t help but turn back to his old ways. I never dreamt he’d walk in here and offer his throat up to the blade. Curse it, I don’t know what to think anymore … and what about Sirri? Is she alright?’ Cam asked. ‘I know you were up with her last night. I wanted to talk to her this morning, but she ducked out so quickly …’

‘She’s as brittle as spun glass,’ Isidro said. ‘It might help, having him here. She trusts him. She’s calmer when she knows he has her back.’

Cam took another gulp, and slowly shook his head. ‘I don’t understand it, but it’s true enough … and perhaps he’ll be useful, when all this comes to a head. He’ll fight for her, at least, we can be sure of that. But it’s going to make things more difficult. We’ll need support from the other clans in the long run and the board is laid out against us. I’m an Angessovar, Mira’s ancestry makes it look like the Wolf Clan’s taking a second bite at the cherry, and Sirri’s a Child of the Black Sun — any of those are reason enough for the clans to set against us, but when they find out that I’ve got Kell’s apprentice under my roof … there’s no chance.’

Isidro heaved a sigh. ‘It doesn’t matter. The Akharians will move against us long before the clans could make any difference. If we win, they’d be fools to stand against us.’

‘And if we don’t, it’s a moot point.’ Cam rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Am I being foolish to keep us here?’

Isidro shook his head. ‘No, you’re right, we have to stop running sometime. Look, Cam, I need to get back to the workrooms. We’re building some defences —’

Cam nodded, cutting him off with a gesture. ‘Some system of checkpoints, Ardamon told me. But are you sure you’re alright, Issey? Having Rasten under this roof?’

Isidro had started towards the door, but at the question he slowly turned back. ‘You remember that fight in the east?’

‘When you woke up? Of course I remember.’

Isidro looked down at his hands, the flesh and blood one and the cold steel of his claw. ‘This power Kell gave me … Sirri couldn’t help me with it, and I couldn’t master it by myself, but … but Rasten …’

Cam drew a sharp breath. ‘You turned to
him
?’

Isidro couldn’t meet his brother’s eyes. He just shrugged. ‘There was no one else. He knows this power better than anyone alive. And he owed me.’

Cam hadn’t known. Sierra had guessed, maybe, but she’d never spoken of it. Isidro had never let her close enough.

Isidro turned away again. The scars on his back prickled and a phantom ache throbbed in the long-gone bones of his ruined arm. He pushed the sensation away, shoving it beneath the chill numbness wrapped around his spine. The cool touch of it felt like a refuge. ‘I’m sorry, Cam,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go. I have work to do.’

Rasten huddled on the straw pallet, clean now and dressed in shirt and trousers of much-mended cloth.

She’d had the guards clear a tower room for him. Ardamon had wanted him shut away in the cellars, but Sierra wouldn’t have it. He’d spent too long underground, in airless stone rooms, as cold as the grave. She couldn’t do that to him.

Of course, this chamber was little warmer. A stove had been brought in and a few braziers as well, but it would take time to drive the chill from the stone. Rasten didn’t seem to care. He looked around with hollow, haggard eyes still in shock. She shook out a blanket and draped it around his shoulders. ‘You’re half frozen,’ she said.

The sound of heavy boots in the hall made him tense, and he flinched away from the door as Rhia entered, followed by Amaya and a pair of guardsmen carrying her medicine chest.

‘You know Rhia, don’t you?’ she said.

He moved gingerly as he pulled the blanket tight, like a man who’d taken a mortal wound. Sierra had always thought him as strong as stone, but now he seemed wasted and reed-thin. His gaze shifted to Rhia, and he nodded.

‘She’ll see to your leg, and any other wounds you have.’ His left leg had not only been wrenched, but there was a long gash along his calf, and a mass of bruising. To her untrained eye, the wound did not look healthy.

‘Give me the herbs,’ he mumbled, ‘and I’ll do it myself.’

‘You’re in no shape for that.’

Still hugging his knees to his chest, he gave Rhia such a cold and wary gaze that she hesitated, glancing at Sierra.

‘Rasten, you have to trust me. I know this isn’t what you wanted, but things will get better.’

He turned to her with pleading eyes. ‘I just wanted it to be over.’

‘It
is
over. All the things you’re trying to leave behind … they’re dropping further away with every hour that passes, I promise.’

He looked away from her, towards the window. The shutters were closed and covered with a plain hide, but they both knew what lay beyond it. The void and the sea far below seemed to have a song of its own.

Sierra dropped to her knees beside his cot, and caught his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t abandon me again. The Akharians are coming, I don’t know where and I don’t know when, but they’re coming and I … I don’t know if I can do this again, bound on the rack and waiting for the first cut. I can’t bear it. Don’t leave me to face them alone, Rasten. Please.’

He met her gaze, and slowly curled one hand around the back of her neck. ‘You don’t need me. You have your family. What good is a broken beast like me?’

‘They don’t know what it’s like,’ she said. ‘They don’t know what we’ve faced.’

He shook his head, pulling away. ‘Isidro —’

‘He doesn’t talk to me anymore. Not like before. And the others … they mean well, but they don’t know like you do. I try to tell them it’s going to be bad, we need to be ready, and they look at me like I’m mad. I’m afraid they’re right. You say you’re broken by what Kell did? I know I never had it as bad as you, but … you’re not the only one.’

He turned to the window again, with a longing, hungry look, but then he bowed his head to her shoulder. ‘I’ll be here when you need me, Little Crow.’

The workshop was full of people, and since Isidro had left it seemed that the space had been filled with hastily built frames shaped like freestanding doorways. It was crammed with people, fledgling mages wrapping wires and stones against the uprights.

‘Move aside there!’ a voice behind him growled. Isidro had stopped in the doorway, and he glanced back to see a worker weighed down with bundles of wire. When he realised who he’d spoken to, the man blanched and ducked his head. ‘Uh, my apologies sir —’

Isidro cut him off with a gesture and moved out of the way. He’d thought to find some peace and quiet here, not a riot of activity.

Across the chamber, Alameda’s honey-coloured head popped up and she trotted over. ‘We got it working, sir. It was simple in the end. I have the first two up and running, but it’d be faster if Lady Sierra brought us more power. Come along and I’ll show you.’

A few hours ago, the screening devices had been nothing more than an idea and a hasty sketch on a waxed tablet, but Alameda had brought them to life. The stones lit up like a bonfire when a mage passed through, and flickered with colour and light when an enchantment came near, even something as simple as a lantern-stone.

‘And you’ve put this together in just a few hours?’ Isidro said.

‘It’s the same sort of thing the priests use to identify folk with the talent, sir,’ Alameda said. ‘The only problem is Lady Sierra corrupting the enchantments. I mean, even the lantern-stones in the royal quarters only last a day before we have to strip and re-craft them. The ones she passes through every day are going to need constant maintenance.’

‘We can deal with that. Good work, Alameda, but tell me, is Delphi around?’

Alameda shook her head. ‘Once we got the prototype working she went to talk to Lady Mira about some sort of identity papers for our mages … and after the news from downstairs I thought she said she was going to talk to you, sir.’

He’d been afraid of that. He didn’t want to talk about what had happened this morning, not when he couldn’t comprehend how he felt about it himself. The noise of this place was bothering him and his head still ached. ‘I’ve got some things to work on. Keep at this task, and don’t disturb me unless it’s important, alright?’

‘Yessir,’ she said with a bob of her head.

With a sigh, Isidro retreated to the office he shared with Delphine, closing the door firmly against the bustle and noise of the workshop. They’d have their own workspaces eventually, but with books and other resources in such short supply, it made sense to work close together. There was so much to do that they were rarely in these chambers at the same time, anyway.

Isidro flung himself down into his own chair, propping his head on one hand. He was starting to regret making his excuses to get away from Cam … but at the same time, the thought of venturing out into the noise and tumult of the workshops made him physically recoil.

What in the Fires Below is wrong with me?
Isidro thought. Cam would have stayed with him the rest of the day without a second thought, and there had been a time when he’d have wanted nothing more on a day like this. Often these days he wanted only to be alone, but once alone it was worse, with no distraction from the pressure in his head and the tainted power coursing through him.