road. ‘Children are resilient, and you well know his education is about to begin in earnest. His life will be consumed by scholars and teachers and studies, and each night after dinner he will sleep and sleep deeply. Do not be selfish, Sandalath.’ She did not have to add again. ‘It is time.’
‘I am too old to be a hostage once more. It is unseemly.’
‘Consider yourself fortunate,’ Nerys replied. ‘You have served the House of Drukorlas twice, first among House Purake, and now, in the House of its rival.’
‘But House Dracons is so far away, Mother!’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Nerys hissed. She couldn’t see Orfantal any more — perhaps he had run behind the stables, which was just as well. Leave him to his adventures and his stained hands. In a very short time, a new life would take hold of him; and if Sandalath believed that the house behind them would soon be crowded with tutors, well, it did no harm to let her hold some comforting beliefs.
Orfantal was destined for Kharkanas. Where the whispers of bastard would never reach him. Nerys had prepared the way for that arrival: the boy was a cousin from an outland holding, south of the Hust Forges. He was being given to the House of Purake, not as a hostage, but to serve the palace and Mother Dark herself. He would be schooled by the Sons of Darkness, as one in their retinue. Of course, the boy had been raised from a very young age by Sandalath, and often called her his mother, but that affectation would wear off in time.
The horseman from House Dracons rode up, reining in behind the carriage. Remaining in the saddle, he bowed towards Lady Nerys and Sandalath. ‘Greetings and felicitations from the Consort,’ the man said. ‘I am named Ivis.’
Nerys turned to her daughter. ‘Into the carriage.’
But Sandalath was looking past the carriage, stretching to catch a last glimpse of her son. He was nowhere to be seen.
‘Daughter, obey your mother. Go.’
Holding herself as would someone with diseased lungs — shoulders hunched, caving in round the infection — Sandalath made her way down the stone steps. She had a way of seeming both old and impossibly young, and both states filled Nerys with contempt.
Nerys tilted her head towards the escort. ‘Ivis, we thank you for your courtesy. We know you have ridden far this day.’
Atop the bench at the front of the carriage the coachman was eyeing Lady Nerys, awaiting the signal. In the pale sky behind him a flock of birds winged towards the tree-line.
‘Lady Nerys,’ said Ivis, drawing her attention around, ‘we shall ride through the night and arrive at the house of my lord shortly after dawn.’
‘Excellent. Are you alone in this task?’
He shook his head. ‘A troop awaits us east of Abara, milady. Of course, we respect the traditional possessions of your bloodline, and so would do nothing to displease you.’
‘You are most kind, Ivis. Please convey my compliments to Lord Draconus, for selecting such an honourable captain for this task.’ She then nodded to the coachman, who snapped the traces, startling the horse into motion.
The carriage rumbled forward, bouncing over the uneven cobblestones, swinging on to the track that led round the back of the house. Halfway down the hill it would join the road into Abara, and from there it would take the north track, alongside the river, for a short distance before finding the branch leading northeast.
Drawing her heavy cloak about her shoulders, faintly chilled in the shadow of the entranceway, Nerys watched until the rider and the carriage disappeared round the side of the house, and then she looked once more to catch sight of Orfantal. But still he was out of sight.
This pleased her.
Some other battle in the ruins. Another triumphant stand. Another knife in the back.
Children dreamed the silliest dreams.
Standing in the shadow of the burnt-out stables, hidden from the steps of the house, the boy stared after the carriage. He thought he had seen her face, there in the small, smudged window, pale and red-eyed, as she strained to find him, but then the carriage trundled past, turning so that all he could see was its high back and strongbox, the tall wheels leaning and wobbling on old axles. And then, the strange rider in the soldier’s garb rode by, his horse kicking up puffs of dust once past the cobbles.
Soldiers came to Abara. Some had missing limbs or only one eye. Others bore no wounds but died with knives in their chests, as if the weapon had followed them all the way from those distant battles they’d fought in. Darting silver, barely seen in the night, following, finding, at last catching up. To kill the man who’d been meant to die weeks, even months, earlier.
But this soldier, who called himself Ivis, had come to take away his mother.
He didn’t like to see people cry. He’d do anything to keep them from crying, and in his mind, in the imaginary world of strife and heroism that he lived in, he often voiced vows over the tears of a broken woman. And then fought his way across half the world in the name of that vow. Until it killed him, like a knife creeping up from the distant past.
The boy watched the carriage until it was lost from sight. And his mouth then moved, voicing a silent word.
Mother?
There were wars far away, where hate locked weapons and blood sprayed like rain. And there were wars in a single house, or a single room, where love died the death of heroes, and weeping filled the sky. There were wars everywhere. He knew this. There were wars and that’s all there was, and every day he died, taken by that knife that followed him across the whole world, just as it had done to his grandfather.
But for now, he would hide in the shadows, in the stables that had caught fire, killing all but one of the horses. And maybe slink into the wood beyond the corral, to fight ever more battles, losing every time because the real heroes always did, didn’t they? Death always caught up, to everyone. And the day would rush past, as it always did.
Until the call came from the kitchen, ending the world for another night.
Sandalath thought she had seen him, there in the gloom, ghostly against one of the last still-standing walls of the burnt-out stable, but probably had only imagined it. The footing of her mind was uncertain, or so her mother always said; and imagination, such as she’d bequeathed to her son, in abundance, was no virtue in these stressful times. The air inside the carriage was stifling, smelling of mould, but the hinges on the side windows had seized with rust and grime, and the only draught to reach her came from the speak-box leading up to a tube of wood that rose beside the bench where sat the coachman. She barely knew him — he had been hired from the village for this one task — and should she call up to him, to beg his help opening a window, well, that tale would soon fill the taverns — the fallen House and its cursed, useless family. There would be laughter, mockery and contempt. No, she would not ask anything of him.
Sweat trickled beneath her heavy clothes. She sat as still as she could manage, hoping that would help, but there was nothing to do, nothing to occupy her hands, her mind. Too much rocking and jostling to resume her embroidery; besides, dust was already drifting in, sliced bright by thin spears of sunlight. She could feel it coating her face, and had there been tears on her cheeks — which she knew there were supposed to be — then the streaks would darken with dirt. Unsightly, shameful.
She remembered her first time as a hostage; she remembered her time in the Citadel, the breathless excitement of all those people moving through countless sumptuous rooms, the tall highborn warriors who never seemed to mind the tiny girl underfoot. She remembered the wealth — so much wealth — and she had come to believe that this was her world, the one to which she had been born.
She had been given a room, up a winding flight of stairs; there she would often sit waiting, flushed and excited, for the high bell announcing meals, when she’d rush down, round and round those ever-turning steps, to lunge into the dining room — and they would laugh in delight upon seeing her.
For most of that first year it seemed that she had been the centre of attention in the entire Citadel, feted like a young queen, and always nearby were the three warrior sons of Lord Nimander, to take her hand whenever she reached up, whenever she needed to feel safe. She remembered her fascination with Silchas Ruin’s white hair, the
