The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (109 page)

The Lady planted her fists on her hips.  “Ama, I have tried to be understanding—“

“
Ammala.
”

“Ama, dear, don't be like this.“

Had there been normal furniture, Ammala thought she might have flung a chair.  Instead she crossed her arms and averted her gaze to the ceiling.  She felt ridiculous: trapped, belittled, unheard.  To be nearly forty and yet primped-with like an unwilling bride!

“I want my children,” she said tightly.

The Lady gave an unladylike snort.  “Throne's sake, did they give you no conditioning at all?  I know they're short-handed at this time of year, but they could have at least mindwashed you before they sent you to me.  Ah well, you'll forget your children soon enough, and you'll be happier for it.”

Ammala imagined tearing into the Lady with her sharp new nails, or the fang-like protrusions she felt behind her teeth.  She was a strong woman, used to exertion and hardship, while this court harlot probably got all her exercise while on her back.

But her first stride toward the Lady somehow became a spring, startling her into a stumble upon landing.  Her legs felt strange, tense, and her jaw ached; a crawling itch covered her shoulders and neck.

“Now now, watch your temper,” teased the Lady, but Ammala saw that she had shifted stance, fingers curled, high heels braced on the white floor as if ready to flee or kick.  “You're still new to this.  It may take weeks to learn how not to run into walls when you get excited.  But trust me, it's worth it.  We may be required to dote on lordlings, even share their beds, but we have plenty of compensations.”

“Such as?”

“Thralls, oh thralls...  As many adoring eyes as you could desire.”  Her stance eased and she touched the golden medallion at her throat, the illusion briefly flickering to show honeycomb eyes.  “I miss my thralls.  Soon they'll be the only humans left, you know.  But I had to leave them back in Thynbell lest the Palace overwhelm them...”

Lush lips pursed in displeasure, she stared into the distance, then shook her head.  “You'll have thralls soon enough,” she told Ammala.  “Maybe some of the northern lords, or those Illanic governors.  You're probably to their taste.”

Fury warred with curiosity, but after a few deep breaths, curiosity won.  “The only humans left,” Ammala echoed.

“Oh yes, as our worshipful servants and breeders.  You can't breed anymore—I hope you don't mind.  My generation could, but it was...problematic, so the Maker removed it.  We'll have to rely on humans to increase our numbers until he finds the solution, but then...”  She gestured grandly.  “No barriers to our Empire.”

Ammala looked away, remembering the slaves and conscripts who had marched past her cottage, the blood-bright banners of the Crimson Army snapping above their bent heads and hollowed eyes.  Though her son Paol had seen them too, he had chosen to join them—for her sake and that of his siblings.  How many more boys had gone down that road, only to fall to predators like the Lady?

Like the Empire itself.

And how many girls?  She had thought her family fortunate to escape conquest and ravishment, but now one monstrous man had taken Jesalle, and another had Izelina...

And Aedin, poor Aedin...

Again she felt the tension in her legs, the muscular ease of this altered body, and she wondered what she could do with it.

“Now, are you done?” said the Lady.  “I'd like to finish this.”

Ammala opened her mouth, but the wall behind the Lady suddenly dimpled open to reveal a white-armored man.  Unlike the other Palace guards, he had his helm off, and his face was strained, his fair hair unkempt.  Though most of him was clad in a hazy shimmer, the weapon across his back—perhaps a sword, wrapped in heavy cloth—radiated something more like an aurora.

The Lady saw him, and her face transformed with pleasure.  “Kel!  Kel, darling—oh, what's wrong?”

The man grimaced.  He looked vaguely familiar to Ammala, but in the same broad-shouldered blond way of all those Jernizen mercenaries.  She'd never been drawn to that type, much preferring good sturdy midland Illanites like her Gefron, whose dark eyes she could have drowned in.

“The Field Marshal is here,” he said.  “I thought we were safe with the teleport block in place, but he must have gotten a portal opened on the road.  He's been going through the cells, gathering the people he thinks Enkhaelen's influenced.”  Helm in hand, he gestured to Ammala.  “Isn't she one?”

Frowning, the Lady looked from Ammala to the man, Kel.  “Well yes, I believe so, but...”

“Then we need to go.  The two of them are up to something.  Even if I can only save one person, I—“

“Save?  What are you talking about?”

The man hesitated, turmoil evident on his face, then hissed, “Rackmar wants to take Enkhaelen down, but he doesn't know who he's dealing with.  He thinks he can use Enkhaelen's victims to manipulate him, but he's just going to get them all killed.  I'm tired of tolerating this shit from them, Annia.  I can't fight my father, but at least I can stymie his favorite monsters.”

“What good will that do?” said the Lady.  By the way she crossed her arms tight, Ammala gathered she was worried, even though her expression had gone weary.  “You'll never be able to stop them.  The more you struggle, the more they laugh.”

“I'm tired of standing by.”

She scoffed.  “You think protecting one woman will ease your conscience?  Or are you just here to gain access to the only lagalaina you haven't fucked yet?”

“Don't start.”

“If the Field Marshal demands this one in the name of the Emperor, I will obey, because they are my masters.  You have given me no better option.”

“This isn't about us!”

“Isn't it?  If you only come to me when you want something—“

“Pikes, Annia, this is not the time.”

Concerned and confused, Ammala looked to the mage, who had broken off her working to stare at the pair.  Catching Ammala's eye, she gave an apologetic grimace but said nothing, which Ammala decided put her squarely in the Lady's camp.

Stepping forward, she said, “I will go with him.  No need to bicker.”

The Lady gave her a scathing glance.  “No.  You sit in your chair.  If the Field Marshal wants you, you're his, but until then we still have work to do.”

“Pike your work,” snapped Ammala.  “I don't want your paints and powders.  I want my children to be able to recognize me when I find them.”

The Lady's lush pink lips pulled back in a sneer.  “You're out of luck, my dear.  Just look at yourself.”

On cue, the mage tapped her mirror-net, then held it out to Ammala, the gap now filled with reflective silver.  Ammala took it despite herself.

A monstrous stranger stared back at her.  Dark eyes had been replaced by white-less segmented orbs, farmer's tan by a mottling of bronze.  The age-lines on her cheeks and brows were gone, the skin smooth as glazed ceramic, and even her hair was different—not coarse but flowing like dark silk.  When she opened her mouth, she saw the new sharpness of her teeth, the kittenish fangs slightly extended, and glimpsed the tip of the barb beneath her tongue.

She dropped the mirror, forcing the mage to fumble for it with a cry of concern.  “Take me out of here,” she told the man, who nodded and beckoned.

Flustered, the Lady tried to get in her way.  “This is foolishness for both of you.  The Field Marshal is not a forgiving—“

Ammala planted a hand square in her face and pushed by.

Invectives followed them as she and the man started down the hall beyond.  It was the same white substance as the chamber, but to her strained eyes it seemed like something moved within the walls and floor—at first steady but then in pulses, quickening and brightening as the man chose their route.  Intersections breezed by, along with alcoves that perhaps were sealed doors, and spiral stairs, and upper hallways that crossed over theirs like bridges.  The man trailed one hand along the wall, and where it touched, the pulse was brightest.

She wanted to ask what she was seeing, or why he was helping, but they were not the only travelers; men and women in white brushed past them in clumps, leaving little bare space in between.  All their faces seemed drained, as the mage's had—the ruddiness gone from cheeks and lips—and in some she glimpsed patterns like white veins beneath the skin.  Her eyes burned in the weird light, each pulse ratcheting her headache higher.

Then, abruptly, the light fled from beneath the man's fingers.  He kept going for a moment, then halted at a corner, staring down the cross-path as if expecting something.

To his other side, the blank wall irised open.

“My dear Crown Prince,” boomed a voice that sent chills up her spine.  The man whipped around, hand rising toward his sword-hilt, then halted when he saw the speaker: a burly black-bearded fellow in matte-white dress armor, a broad stole draped across his shoulders to bracket the etched iron gorget with its symbols of rank.  Stepping out from his sides came two Palace guards in their faceless white helms, hands clasped as if clutching invisible blades; behind him, a line of guards mixed with oddball pilgrims snaked back into the depths of the structure.

“Field Marshal,” the man growled.

She didn't need to hear the title.  She knew him.

The man who had taken Jesalle.

Without thought, her barbed feet propelled her forward.  He was a mere two yards away, throat exposed, and her new instincts screamed for her to plunge her nails through his flesh.  She was happy to oblige.

But his faceless guards moved first, whip-like weapons extruding from their fists, and she couldn't brace her feet fast enough to backpedal—not with the strange spurs on her heels.  The whips caught her arms and thrust them sideways, neatly stapling them to the wall.

“Ah, and this must be what remains of Mistress Cray,” said the Field Marshal, raking her over and dismissing her with one glance.  “Where, precisely, were you going with her, my prince?”

“To my bedroom.  Where else?” the prince snapped.

A harsh sound emerged from the Field Marshal's lips, too humorless to be a chuckle.  “Is that so.  Alas, I must interrupt your newest liaison, for I have need of this woman.  I imagine you can find many other willing distractions throughout the city.”

“Rackmar...”

Contempt wiped out the remnants of the Field Marshal's false charm.  “Begone.  Go lose yourself in another whore's bosom.”

The prince's face twisted, and he retreated a step, then looked to Ammala.  His eyes held the same pain she'd seen in others, too bound by duty or loyalty or fear to act, and in her heart she cursed all these men.  These would-be heroes who proved themselves children when it counted.

Then his gaze slid to Rackmar's entourage, and in following it, Ammala felt her heart skip a beat.  Maegotha Cray was there, standing straighter than she had in decades, but it was not from any new vitality; her eyes were blank, her mouth slack, nothing left in that withered white-robed shell but the puppet-strings that made her move.

At her side was a smaller form, a boy...

Mist clouded Ammala's eyes, fracturing her sight into a million shards.  She wanted to scream denial, to claw and bite and kick, but her bonds were too strong.  This nightmare held her like quicksand, with no hope of escape.

Clenching her teeth, she blinked rapidly, determined not to let them see her weep.  She'd tried to shoulder her husband's stoicism after his death, but it wasn't in her nature; tears and wrath came long before acceptance.  She'd driven Paol away like that.

She couldn't afford it now.

Goddess, grant me calm
, she thought. 
Grant me the strength to avenge my mother-in-law and my sons, and the cleverness to find my daughters.  Grant me a cold heart, just for now.  I will weep when this is done.

By the time her eyes cleared, the prince was gone, the last echoes of Rackmar's mocking laughter dying from the hall.  “Get her under control,” he told his minions with a negligent wave.

The two guards stepped aside, still maintaining their weird tendril-lines, and a moment later Ammala felt an itch in the back of her skull that swelled and spread until she could barely feel her limbs. 
Walk
, said a voice in her mind, and like an automaton, her body obeyed.

After several pulling, kicking steps, the tendrils released her into the crowd.  She did not resist the psychic impulse, not even to approach her kin; the tightness in her chest told her it was best if she did not see them.  She did not think she could stop the scream once it started.

Instead, as the mind-control eased, she raised her gaze to the Field Marshal's back.  She could not reach him now, but if there was to be a conflict, his defenses might lapse.

And she would have him.

Chapter 29 – Games Over Cages

More than a day after following Erevard and his black blade over the side of the White Road, Dasira still had not caught up.

Not for lack of trying.  Her condition and her size made it difficult to move through the sludgy water—sometimes the only option when the grassy tussocks ran out.  She could see him ahead, a white figure delineated against the brown and grey, and sometimes she felt his gaze on her, but he didn't seem to care enough to turn and face her.  His sword led him on, like Serindas had once led her.

She counted herself fortunate that he was the only one of his patrol to enter the swamp.  While she hadn't been close enough to hear their argument, she'd gathered from the gestures of the other White Flames that they were meant to stay on the road and report in, not run off after their prey.  It was reasonable; the swamp had its dangers.

Apparently Erevard did not agree.

Around them, the landscape warmed slowly.  Ice and frost had vanished, and the water had lost its bite.  Further on, it would be tepid, and the trees would still bear all their leaves—perhaps their flowers.  It reminded her of the inner Mist Forest, with its blooms and fruiting boughs, and the rumors of the Summerland of Haaraka.  She'd never connected the three before, but considering the Emperor's alliance with the haelhene, perhaps she should have.  They all denied the cycle of the seasons in the same way.

Except...not entirely.  The Mist Forest had hosted birds, and according to Cob the Summerland had been full of animals of all types.  Here there were no mammals, no birds, no frogs—not even insects.

Just sickly-looking cyrak trees, with their pale peeling bark and heavy leaves, and ghostreeds and hair-like swamp grass, and silvery soren and faint green young rainbowwood saplings.  And fungus.  White shelf-fungus growing on everything, plus tiny little whitecaps underfoot.

Pikes, why am I thinking about piking trees and birds and whatever at a time like this?  Think about the mission.  Think about that bastard.  Because...

He was taunting her.  Had to be.  He was keeping just in sight, moderating his pace, because he wanted her at his heels.  He wanted...

What?

A fight?  Obviously not.  Answers?  It wasn't like he couldn't turn around and ask.  To see how far she would follow him?

What did he know?

She looked up from pulling herself onto another tussock, panting, and realized that he had stopped.  He was standing there among a patch of cyrak trees, his back to her, the sword lowered at his side.

A bout of nerves clenched her heart.  Had he lost track of Cob?

She considered holding her position, but practicality advised that she make up the distance while it was possible.  Carefully, scanning the white-marked woods with every step, she crept closer to him, all too aware of the
splish
and
schluff
of her boots in the muck.

Serindas came to her hand without thought.  His hunger tugged her forward; it had been a while since his last feeding, and she felt its lack as well.  Her threads could only mend so much, and the supplementary energy the dagger provided would be welcome.

Very soon now
, she thought, though she could not put much confidence in it.

She was a stone's throw away when he spoke.

“The red blade.  I was trying to remember where I'd seen it.  But I know now.”

She halted shin-deep in the marsh.  He had not turned, yet his voice was pitched low, confidential, as if he knew just how far away she stood.  Perhaps he could see through his White Flame armor—it had many benefits, for all that it was a walking prison—but with the helm off she thought not.  He was just aware, and calm, like the bait for a trap.

“Red light in the badlands night,” he went on, the black sword quiescent in his hand.  “All the way to the river.  Are you Darilan Trevere...?”

“Why do you ask?” she said, though she knew well enough.

He turned then, first just glancing back and then shifting to face her, his feet steady despite the slick-looking bank of moss beneath him.  A hint of Serindas' red glow reflected in his eyes, but his expression gave away nothing.

“You're not him...but that is his blade,” he said thoughtfully.  “Which makes you...his inheritor?  Or his new self?  I have seen how faces change here.  I'd never suspected.”

His tone was conversational, almost dreamy, and the hairs on the back of her neck went up.  They had never interacted much in the Crimson camp; she had stuck to Cob's side and Erevard to Fendil's, their only social contact through their partners.  But she had seen the violence in his eyes even then, and from what she'd heard after Cob's escape, he'd been ready to boil over at any provocation.

Conversion wiped away many things, but not anger.

“What does it matter?” she said.

“If you're him, then you were there.”

In a blink, she saw it.  The sword in her hand, Cob's shocked face.  Fendil, there at the periphery, unimportant except as an object lesson.

“Yes,” she said.

“The only witness.”

“Yes.”

“You failed to stop him.”

“I did worse than that,” she said.  She was done with lying, especially when it could mean Cob's life.  “I killed Jas Fendil.  I took Cob's sword and rammed it through his throat and left him there for my own purposes.  Cob was never involved.”

Erevard's eyes widened, star-shaped ruengriin pupils flaring.  His hand convulsed on the sword hilt, white strands locking tight to it.  “Why should I believe you?  You aided his escape.”

“Then I hunted him down.  I nearly killed him.”

“Are you still trying?”

“No.”

The tip of the black sword rose from the moss.  “Then I can't let you go.”

She smiled flatly, about all the confidence she could muster.  He had reach on her, and armor that didn't stick to his shins or weigh him down with mud.  Serindas could cut it but any other blow she landed would be absorbed, and as she forced herself forward, she saw his hand rise to the lump of helm to pull it on.

“Why bother avenging him?” she said quickly to keep him from sealing himself in.  She needed every advantage she could get.  “He was a nobody, just some criminal piece of scum.  You could've—“

Snarling, Erevard flung himself from his perch, spraying green water and mud in a wave as he hit the marsh.  The murky bottom jerked him up short, giving her the chance to close the distance.

Serindas caught the black blade as it delved for her, driving it across his body in a shower of gory sparks.  She flipped her grip and drove for Erevard's wrist.  Rather than pulling back, he moved into her and brought his elbow up; she tried to bend away but the muck had her too, and he clipped her in the cheekbone hard enough to rattle her shattered ear-socket.  A stagger, a reel, and then she straightened just in time to block a vicious slice.

He moved into the clinch, crossbars locked, trying to overbear her.  He was a handspan taller and probably twice as heavy with the armor, and the mud under her feet indented as she leaned into his push.  Her boots slid while his stayed planted.  As he forced the black edge toward her face, his other fist swung up into her ribs.

The impact sent black stars through her vision, but she ignored them, snarling back at him and accepting his follow-up punch; only the rotblade meant anything.  Dark vermilion light crackled at the points where the two blades touched, and Serindas vibrated beneath her fingers, filling her head with songs of bloodlust.  There seemed no dominant weapon.  Despite their lengths, they had the same rage, the same virulence.

That was good, since nothing else was matched.

She jabbed a thumb at his eye and nearly lost the arm when he swiveled his sword toward it.  Her angle was bad; she needed to in-fight to have any chance at scoring a hit but she could not let him get the rotblade free, could not risk a touch.  The ice rapier at the border of the Mist Forest had been one thing, but if she got cut and her hand rotted off, taking the blade from him would not bring it back.

He knew it, and his snarl became a sneer.  He shoved her and tried to step back to put her at sword's length; her feet almost went out from under her.  She caught herself in a crouch and half-lunged, half-waded in pursuit.  As steady as Erevard was in the muck, he still sank into it more than she did, making her swifter, and when he cut at her on the approach, she caught his blade at the middle with Serindas and forced it overhead.

Then she turned into the circle of his arms, back to his chest, and rammed the top of her skull into his jaw.

His head rocked, and again he tried to move away but she crammed her side against his forearm and grappled with her free hand at the hilt.  Bound to his gauntlet by the white strands, it would not come free—but he was new to the armor and the blade, and tried to pull away as if she really could take it.  His other hand latched onto her face as if to peel her off and spin her away, but he had lost track of Serindas.

Which she sank backhand into his sword-arm.

A shout, a shove, and she was stumbling through the mire again, spine prickling with the sense of impending stab.  She recovered just in time to turn and deflect his lunge, but not avoid his bulk as he barreled into her, driving her down into the water.

She floundered, boots scraping uselessly against the slick bottom, and saw death in his eyes as he raised the black sword.  But his shoulder spasmed, a dark red stain standing out on the whiteness there, and she managed to half-glide half-roll out of the way.

A tussock loomed up beside her.  She grabbed frenziedly at its slick leaves and managed to pull herself upright to defend, Serindas forcing aside the black sword right before Erevard rammed his shoulder into her face.  Down she went—down and backward over the tussock, nearly nailing her head against a tree, and then the tree was falling toward her with black rot crawling up its trunk.

It clipped her despite her desperate scramble, flattening her into the marsh.  Thin reeds snapped beneath her, splinters puncturing her skin, murk and water trying to swallow her whole.  As she squirmed out from under the trunk, she glimpsed Erevard pacing around from the other side, easy and sure as a hunting cat.

“Trevere,” he said, “or whoever you are, I would have thought you'd understand.  Maybe you weren't as close to Cob as I was to Jas, but you kept coming back.  Not even to talk, just to sit with him.  Just to be there.”

She tried to ignore his words as she scrambled up, but they cut deep.  They'd had something back in the Crimson camp, her and Cob, and it wasn't a romance but it was more than she'd had in all her years.  And she had murdered it.

“Jas and I thought you were good for him,” Erevard continued, pacing her retreat, the point of his sword tracking her heart like a lodestone.  “Whatever you were getting out of it—who knew?—but he lit up when you were around.  Stupid, all of us.  And you too, by that look on your face.”

“It was a mistake,” she said.

“Too late.”

He came on in a frenzy, and it was all she could do to stay upright, to track the flicker of his eyes and intercept his blade before it could score its kill.  The sodden robe dragged at her, snagging on every submerged root and reed, and the headscarf that concealed her bad ear was plastered to her brow, seeping fetid water down her cheek.  Ready to plunge across her vision at any time.

She tried to swing toward obstructions, to hide behind a tree or hummock and momentarily escape his reach, but he pressed relentlessly.  The air between them bloomed with bloody sparks.  She could not match him—not like this, unarmored, exhausted, hurt.

But if she ran...

“He was never involved,” she said, deflecting another jab mere inches from her face.

“You killed my love,” said Erevard.  “I'll kill yours.”

Fine, then
, she thought as she braced her feet for a final lunge. 
If you won't stop, we'll go together.  Two twisted souls rotting in the mire.  Let Cob have his new life without the baggage of the old.  Let it go, and die victorious.  Die—

He intercepted her strike not with his sword but with his gauntlet.  Serindas went through the white armor into his hand.  As he locked his fingers on the crosspiece, he drove forward with his own blade, and Dasira—shocked to be caught in a way she had so often used on others—did not let go, or drop, or even cry out as the black sword skewered her.

It went in just above the left hip and came out on the other side of her spine.  She swayed backward and its hideous edge tore her wide open.  Ichor surged into her throat, already combating the bloom of rot, but there was no escape.

He let go of Serindas and it slid free, depriving her of her last support.  As she crumpled into the water, she saw the black sword rise again.

Then the murk closed over her.

*****

Light.

Motion, dim and distant.

And a voice...