Lamentation

the door.

“What are you doing?” Oriv demanded, trying to stand but finding that his legs would not carry him. The Gray Guard moved in behind him and held him down in his chair. One of the Entrolusians reached down and took the cup from his hands, placing it on the small table next to the bottle of Firespice. Suddenly, he recognized him. “General Lysias?”

The general said nothing, instead looking to Grymlis. Oriv watched their exchange of glances and tried to stand again. Firm hands held him in place.

“What’s this about?” he asked.

Grymlis took a cloth-wrapped bundle from the other Entrolusian and pulled out a long object that Oriv recognized only too well. “What are you doing?”

Grymlis’s big hand closed over Oriv’s, and now Oriv struggled to keep his white-knuckled grip on the arm of the chair. But the alcohol had numbed him, and Grymlis pried it free easily. Oriv felt the cold wood of the artifact pressed into his hand. He felt the cold iron of the artifact’s barrel pressed into the soft tissue between his chin and his throat.

“What are you doing?” he asked again in a voice that sounded more like a whimper than a demand. Only now he knew exactly what Grymlis was doing, and he twisted and turned in the chair in the hopes that it would somehow be enough.

“I’m protecting the light,” Grymlis said, his voice heavy and hollow despite the hardness in his eyes.

“But I-”

And in that moment, Oriv found the forgetfulness that no bottle could ever offer him.

Petronus

Petronus crested the last hill and climbed down from his saddle to stretch his legs. Below, the flat, wide river moved sluggishly south, and on its farthest shore the town of tents had shrunk to more of a small village. A few figures moved between the last of the tents and a fleet of wagons. Beyond the tents, the expansive plain that had once been Windwir stretched out, a soup of mud and ash.

Rudolfo dismounted beside him. “It looks quiet,” he said.

Of course it was quiet. The work had been done for nearly a week. The Entrolusians had been gone for some time now, retreating south to deal with problems within their own borders. Petronus looked at Rudolfo and then back out over the muddy waste. “He’s done good work here,” he said.

Rudolfo nodded. “He has. There’s a captain hidden inside that boy.”

Or a Pope, Petronus thought, feeling his stomach sink. The wind stirred, and a few drops of rain spattered on his cheek and hand. “Indeed,” he said, glancing again to the Gypsy King.

Behind them, he heard the sound of a small bird rustling as a scout cooed and whispered to it. The brown war-sparrow entered his line of sight with a flutter and shot down the hill to cross the river.

Climbing back into his saddle, Petronus carefully nudged the horse along the muddy track that wound them downhill. When they were halfway to the bottom, Petronus noticed the workers gathering on the far shore. A handful of men boarded the barge they had rigged with ropes and pulleys to serve as a makeshift ferry. Slowly it made its way across the water, and when Petronus and Rudolfo reached the river’s edge with their escort, Neb stood waiting.

He’s not smiling. This surprised Petronus. The boy-young man now, he realized- seemed taller and more broad-shouldered, but those weren’t what caused him to fill out the Androfrancine robes he wore. No, Petronus realized. It was confidence. A quiet confidence, to be sure, but that was the strongest kind.

The boy’s face was flat and hard, the jaw set. “Father,” Neb said, bowing slightly. “Windwir is laid to rest.”

But there is more. Petronus dropped from the horse. “You’ve done excellent work, Neb.”

Neb nodded. “Thank you, Father.”

Rudolfo climbed down as well and clapped the young man on the shoulder. “I was telling his Excellency that you have the makings of a fine captain.”

“Thank you, Lord Rudolfo,” Neb said, inclining his head to the Gypsy King. Then he fixed his stare on Petronus again. “I received a bird for you just before dawn under Androfrancine colors.” He extended a scrap of paper. “It’s from House Li Tam.”

Petronus took the note and scanned it. It was uncoded-a rarity for his old friend-and to the point.

Resolute is dead by his own hand, the note read. Sethbert is deposed and flees the delta. Petronus felt his own jaw set, and handed the note to Rudolfo. He knew he should feel some kind of relief, but didn’t. With Resolute dead and Sethbert out of power, it was only a matter of time before the war burned itself out. This was good news for Petronus, good news for all of the Named Lands. And yet, it saddened him. One more life snuffed out. And at least a part of him felt suspicion at the convenience of it.

The sober look on Neb’s face told Petronus that the young man felt the same way.

Rudolfo looked up from the note, grinning like a wolf. “If this is true, the war is over.” He handed the note back to Petronus. Then, he turned and slipped back to confer with his men.

Petronus pulled Neb aside. “Are you ready to fold it up here?”

Neb nodded and glanced north quickly. His face went wistful, and there was hesitation in his voice. “I am.”

The girl, Petronus realized. He’s seen more of her. Thirty years ago, he’d have insisted that the young man keep himself free from such entanglements. But time and change had softened him, and he couldn’t fault the boy for finding something akin to love here in the Desolation of Windwir. He put his hand on Neb’s shoulder. “You’ll have to tell me about her on the way home.”

The beginnings of a smile pulled at Neb’s mouth. “I’m not sure I can, Father.”

Petronus squeezed the shoulder and dropped his hand to his side. “In your own time, son. Meanwhile, I’m famished. Is the galley tent still up?”

“They’re cooking a digger’s feast for you,” Neb said, gesturing to the barge. “Beans and biscuits with pork gravy. The last of our stores.” A line of men stood near it, ready to shove it back into the river and work the ropes that would carry them across.

Petronus led his horse up the low ramp. Rudolfo joined him, his eyes bright. When everyone was aboard, the ferry lurched into the water.

I’ll not be accompanying you back, Rudolfo signed.

Petronus nodded. He’d wondered as much after the Gypsy King’s hurried and hushed council with his men. Riding south? he signed in reply.

“I’ve decided to do some hunting,” Rudolfo said with a smile and a flourish of his hand. Sethbert is mine.

Petronus’s fingers moved. But you’ll take him alive?

Rudolfo blanched. “Of course,” he said, his voice low. My physicians will have their opportunity to redeem him beneath their salted knives.

He felt himself frown. He did not approve of the Gypsies’ adherence to those darker forms and rituals of redemption. It was a barbaric leftover from an age when Wizard Kings doled out justice in white cutting rooms beneath couch-strewn observation decks. Where, sipping their chilled wines and eating their sliced pears, lords and ladies listened to penitent screams beneath a scattering of stars that pulsed like heartbeats in blackened sky.

It flew against everything P’Andro Whym had made.

Still, the Named Lands needed to see some kind of public justice for Sethbert’s crimes, and Petronus’s own plans served a higher aim than that. Healing would not come from justice alone. There also had to be change.

After all, Petronus thought, change is the path life takes.

He looked at Neb again and felt his heart breaking at what he knew awaited them in the Ninefold Forest.

Sethbert

Sethbert stirred beneath a pile of damp, molding hay and squinted into the shadowed barn. Daylight peeked