Antiphon

Lysias nodded. “You may be correct.”

“And I am thinking,” Rudolfo said, “that it may have been a mistake, killing the girl.”

The old general nodded again. “It may have been. I think I could’ve broken her.”

Rudolfo regarded him. “Perhaps,” he said, “but I think it would’ve broken something in you. Some actions we take can do that.”

Lysias chuckled. “You underestimate me, Lord. Those parts of me were broken a long time ago.” He was quiet for a moment. “Still, she is dead and that is an unchangeable fact.” He looked back to Rudolfo, and their eyes met. “At least,” he said, “you took action.”

Yes. “I hope it was the right action.”

Lysias shrugged. “It felt right at the moment?”

“It felt. ” Rudolfo let the words trail out. His answer troubled him. “It felt satisfying.”

“Perhaps it was what you needed to find your path again.”

Perhaps it was. But another part of him rebuked that inner voice. He let the quiet settle in again.

The sound of the bird was loud, and Rudolfo heard its shrill cries long before it settled onto a fallen log in the center of the clearing. His hand moved instinctively for his scout knife as it flapped the ice from its wings.

It was larger than he’d imagined it would be up close. Its dead, glassy eyes stared, and even from a distance, he could smell the decay of it. The kin-raven hopped in place upon the log and opened its beak.

A voice leaked out. “Greetings, Rudolfo son of Jakob, lord of the Ninefold Forest. I am Eliz Xhum, regent of the Crimson Empress. Grace and peace to you from the Empire of Y’Zir.” The voice paused, though the beak did not move. “Your father rejoiced at the coming of this day and bid me bear you his pride and love. He had longed to hold the Child of Promise in his arms but, alas, it was not the path set out for him.”

Rudolfo felt the words even as he heard them. They were colder than the winter sky and sharper than knives. My father? He forced his attention back to the mottled dark messenger upon its log.

“I have been informed of the recent treachery against your family and can assure you that every step is being taken both for the prevalence of justice and the safety of the Great Mother and her Child of Promise. I regret the chaos and violence of the past two years and I regret the chaos yet to come, though I’m certain a time is coming when you will concur, as your father did before you, that this is essential for the healing of our world.” There was a pause, and Rudolfo glanced to Lysias. The man listened intently with a look of understanding that grew to look more like alarm with every word. The voice continued. “My emissary will reach your western border by way of the Whymer Road in approximately one week’s time. My eager hope is that they will be met with peace and welcome, and escorted safely to you that our strategy for a successful transition may be discussed. I look forward to our work together, Rudolfo.”

The bird’s beak closed, and Rudolfo did not hesitate. He drew his knife and flung it at the kin-raven even as its great wings spread. He’d not thrown in a goodly while, and he felt the strain of the sudden movement in his shoulder and arm. The knife went wide, missing by a span, and the bird lifted into the sky to shriek at him as it fled west.

Rudolfo cursed and walked to the log, recovering his knife. Lysias said nothing, and by the look on his face, Rudolfo could tell the older officer was trying to read him, to gauge this new information and its impact upon him.

My father. He did not believe it, of course. It wasn’t possible. He’d watched his father ride out to put down resurgences in the name of the Pope. What was his role in this? The knots in his stomach were twisting now as his mind went back to the blood shrine they’d found in the forest. And the list of names, including some of his father’s closest and most trusted friends.

Our strategy for a successful transition. He looked to Lysias. “What do you make of it?”

“Invasion,” the old general said. “And he would not tell you so much if he did not know already that there was nothing to be done for it.”

Rudolfo nodded. “I hope you’re wrong.”

But he did not believe he was, any more than he believed this sudden fear he felt about his father was somehow misplaced. It answered too many questions.

In that moment, Rudolfo wept, and he felt rage and despair rising off of him like heat from a banked fire.

Chapter 26

Winters

Somewhere in the crowd, an infant wailed and broke the silence that had taken hold of them. Winters looked out over the mass of people who had gathered beneath the rising moon, took in the cutting table and then turned her attention to the man who had just spoken.

When she answered him, her voice rolled out for league upon league. “There is nothing reasonable about your faith,” she said. “You impose it. You force your mark. You press your gospels into the hearts of small children and teach it to them as if it were certain truth.”

As she spoke, a smile played at the corners of Eliz Xhum’s mouth. Something bright sparked in his eye. “And how is that any different from your Homeseeking Dream? Were you not taught as a child that eventually this Homeseeker would arise? Did you not cover yourself with ash and mud to remind you of sorrow and loss during your sojourn between homes?” The regent spoke slowly, his magicked voice a gentle thunder in the winter air. “And beyond matters of faith, your Androfrancines-soulless offspring of that deicide, P’Andro Whym-did they not also teach their view of things as if they were certain truth? To children? And did they not hold hostage an entire population to their atheistic convictions and their worship of human knowledge, hoarding that knowledge to themselves in their walled city, doling it out or withholding it at their whim?”

Winters glanced to Jin Li Tam. The woman watched her, her eyes betraying concern, as she shifted Jakob in her arms. Winters turned back to the regent. “As to the Androfrancines,” she said, “my people have resisted them from the time they arrived upon our lands. You know this.” She looked to her sister. “And as to my faith. ” She paused. My faith. It was indeed hers, and it stirred up a feeling in her even stronger than the feelings that Neb had stirred up in the days when their dreams had touched and they had touched within them. She met the regent’s eyes. “My faith is built upon two thousand years of the Homeward Dream, passed down from father to son until at last, it came to me.”

“And mine,” Xhum said, “hearkens back to the days before, when the Moon Wizard Raj Y’Zir fell to live among us and teach us the love of a father for his child. But regardless, our faiths are not mutually exclusive, young Winteria. Indeed they are intertwined. You are young in your knowledge of Y’Zir, but there are many passages about the Machtvolk and their role. Perhaps this one will interest you.” He looked from her to Ria, and Winters followed the glance and saw the worry upon her face. “ ‘In the Winter of Days, a daughter shall be born and named for the season of her arrival, and she shall call forth the true Machtvolk by blood in the shadow of the Deicide’s pyre to take back that which was promised and heal that which was broken.’ ” It correlates with a passage from your own father’s dreams that I suspect you have not read.”

The words were unfamiliar to her. “I have read the Book of Dreaming Kings since my earliest recollection,” she said. “I’ve not read any passage similar to that.”

The regent looked to Ria again, and the woman smiled only slightly. “No, I suspect you haven’t. But I digress. My point is that our faiths are built one upon the other. And more than that, they are intertwined one with the other.”

She wanted to argue with him. She wanted to list the ways that they were different, but she saw clearly now that though he spoke of reason, there was no reasonable way to convey those differences. Her Marshers had skirmished with the Androfrancines and their neighbors, bellowing out War Sermons of a promised home as they did. They’d murdered for their faith even as surely as the Y’Zirites had. They’d raised their children in the certitude of those beliefs, baptizing them in mud and ash when they were old enough to walk. She swallowed, and her eyes darted again to Jin Li Tam. The Gypsy Queen’s face was a mask, but her eyes bore both worry and curiosity.