Crown of Vengeance

sound when it struck shield or blade instead. She saw destriers, mortally wounded, unhorse enemy knights and batter them to death upon the frozen ground, then fall, screaming in rage and pain as they disemboweled themselves in their frantic attempts to stand. Steam curled skyward from open wounds, as if the battlefield was afire. Blood pooled upon the earth and the thick metal scent of it filled the air.

Against all expectation, more wearing the colors of Bethros and Haldil fell than those they sought to slay, for the knights of Penenjil, Enerchelimier, and Calwas fought as if they were demented, drunk on the very blood they spilled. Vieliessar saw a knight of Calwas fling himself from his destrier’s saddle as it fell, grab the tack of a riderless mount caparisoned in Penenjil colors, and drag himself to its back.

This is what you were born for, she thought, even as she flinched at the screams of the wounded. This implacable conviction was a terrible, aching weight in her chest, the sight before her both horrible and exciting. Once she had dreamed of fighting upon such a battlefield. Then she had been trained to care for its survivors. There will be no survivors today, she thought. This was no formal combat, where the injured could throw down their swords and ride back to their own lines if they could not fight on. The knights upon the field before her would fight until they died.

And this—even this—might be some trick to lure me out of hiding, she thought furiously, for the time I have left with Lady Arevethmonion grows short, and Hamphuliadiel must be more subtle when I am in the sight of all.

As if her thoughts had the power to command reality, the Calwas knight she had marked turned his Penenjil mount from the field. The blood-maddened destrier reared and fought, desperate to rejoin the battle though it was bleeding from a dozen wounds. At last its rider prevailed, and the grey warhorse flung itself from the field.

Directly toward Vieliessar’s hiding place.

She stood her ground. Half in disbelief, half with the desperate need to Heal at least one of the injured. The grey’s rider had dropped his sword as he fought for control of his mount, and his armor was so slicked with blood that the bright metal looked as if it had been enameled.

Arevethmonion would be safety. Arevethmonion would hide him.

But when he was no more than a bowshot’s distance from where she stood, she heard a sound like the crack of an ice-laden tree limb. The destrier went down as if it had struck a tripwire, crashing to the earth so hard that it lay stunned for a moment, and Vieliessar could see the ruin of its shattered foreleg. Once more the knight managed to jump clear as the animal floundered desperately, trying to rise. He staggered to his feet, hesitated, then turned back to the destrier. He flung himself upon its neck, pinning it to the earth as he slashed its windpipe, and the great beast at last lay still.

But that stroke of mercy seemed to have taken all the knight’s strength. He tried to get to his feet, staggered, fell full-length against the frozen earth, and began to crawl.

Vieliessar was running toward him before she thought. “Down,” she gasped, falling to her knees beside him. “Be still. I will Heal you and they will not see us.” Concealment was a simple spell. She cast it without thought.

Every Healer in the Sanctuary knew how to remove the complex armor of the komen, for an injury could not be Healed if it was still transfixed by the metal that had caused it. Beneath the blood-sodden surcoat she could sense the spearhead that had slipped beneath the armored chestplate. Her hands slipped in blood as she worked the intricate fastenings to allow her to lift his helmet free.

His hair was shorn close to his head.

She knew him. Anginach. Anginach Lightbrother of Calwas had been a Candidate in her Service Year. He’d Called Fire one night in the Common Room—terrifying all of them, including himself. He’d become a Postulant, taken the Green Robe, and returned home years before.

How had he come to be here, in armor, bearing a sword?

“Vielle—Vieliessar. P—praise the Silver Hooves…” He reached toward her, wincing as fresh blood forced itself between the plates of his armor, but he was too weak to complete the gesture.

“Be still,” she repeated. She could not take the time to feel her shock at seeing him in armor—she could already sense him dying.

“Healer … too,” he gasped. He coughed, spattering her with his blood. “Lost— The proof— Ah, Farcarinon, forgive— Forgive—”

“You have never harmed me,” she said. “Please. You must try!” With all her skill, she willed her energy to him, willing Anginach the seconds she needed to save him. But the deeper she knew his body, the more she realized it was hopeless. She could not Heal him.

No one could.

He had poisoned himself.

His body told her a tale of days and nights of no food and little sleep, of riding madly across a frozen landscape to reach the Sanctuary of the Star. There were cordials one could take to force the flesh to burn its store of future years in a sennight or a moonturn, to give impossible strength and endurance. They were dangerous at one dose, fatal at two or more. All Lightborn knew the recipes. Anginach had used it.

“Lost,” he repeated. He fought to say more, to tell her what urgency had sent him to the Sanctuary in disguise when he might have come openly in safety, what had caused Calwas and Penenjil to ally themselves …

Why he had begged her forgiveness, for he had never stood her enemy.

It was too late. Anginach drew a deep breath. And did not draw another.

He called me Farcarinon. The words she had left unheard in her desperate fight against time sounded in her mind like the mortal beat of the war drum. Why? Why? Why? Her hands at last freed the catches of his armor. She pulled it from his body with reckless haste, throwing each piece as far as she could. Collet, besages, rerebrace, vambraces, breastplate, greaves, pollyns, cuisses … I shall not let them see my Lightbrother in this falsehood! When he wore nothing more than chain shirt and aketon, he was light enough for her to move.

The battlefield was quiet. She dared to glance back at it. Haldil and Bethros had won, though they had paid a high price. Two knights in purple and blood-spattered gold stood over a kneeling Penenjil Silver Sword with drawn blades. The other two victors were searching among the dead.

The Silver Sword removed her helmet. The Haldil sword swept down. The blow did not sever her head from her neck, but it killed her.

Vieliessar dragged Anginach’s body into the trees. Hide me, Lady Arevethmonion! she begged. Hide us!

The veils of misdirection and invisibility that had shielded her before—half of her making, half the will of Arevethmonion—held fast.

Would the knights mark the absence of one of their foes? Would they search the Flower Forest? What she had seen had been no proper war. Early spring was not War Season. And even if it were, Haldil and Bethros, like Penenjil and Calwas and Enerchelimier, were Houses of the Grand Windsward. Why travel so far from home to do battle?

She dragged Anginach through the forest until she was out of breath. She knew she was leaving a track behind her that a blind hikuliasa could follow, but she would not leave him in his shame.

There were no sounds of pursuit.

In a deep clearing beside another pool, she pulled chain and aketon from his body, drew the point of the broken spear from between his ribs. His flesh was inscribed with the tale of his desperate flight: raw flesh and open sores, bruising and broken bones, a gauntness clearly due to starvation. Beneath the aketon, a length of filthy, blood-sodden parchment was pressed to his chest. She carefully lifted the parchment free and set it aside, then used handfuls of water to wash his flesh clean. As she did, she realized that the knotted flaxen cord he should be wearing—that all the Lightborn wore beneath their robes—was missing.

I will not send you to Tildorangelor unknown.

It was the work of a moment to untie her own cord and knot it about his waist. But what now? Those who went to ride upon the night wind—princes, nobles, komen, and Lightborn—gave their bodies up to unchanging Fire. Only the Landbond and the cursed went into the earth. She would not summon Fire