Weavers of War

however, her hand trembling, she found that the chamber was unlocked. Peering inside, she saw no one. Had the Weaver been wrong about the location of the woman’s chamber? Had Yaella taken too long to reach the City of Kings? Had the woman left Audun’s Castle? She was nearly ready to leave the corridor, although she wasn’t certain where she would go next, when at last she heard someone approaching, light footsteps echoing softly in the nearby stairway.

A moment later the woman came into view.

The Weaver had told Yaella of Cresenne’s beauty, even confessing to her during her extraordinary dream that he had once thought to make this woman his queen. So she was prepared for that. Yaella wasn’t prepared, however, for just how young the woman appeared. Seeing Cresenne approach, Yaella’s resolve wavered, albeit for only a moment. Still, when she allowed herself to be seen and spoke the woman’s name, Yaella was shaking in every limb. The Weaver had wanted her to announce to Cresenne that he was responsible for her murder, as if the woman could have doubted such a thing.

“This is what becomes of those who betray the Weaver and his cause,” she was supposed to say, before striking the killing blow. But it had been all she could do just to say the woman’s name aloud; she couldn’t bring herself to say more. Instead she just leaped at her, moving faster and more nimbly than she had imagined she could.

For a moment, after Cresenne fell, Yaella could only stand there, staring down at her, watching the blood flow from her heart, like a dark river in flood. Then the sound of the child’s crying reached her and with it yet another memory from her last encounter with the Weaver.

“I don’t want the child harmed,” he said. A small grace, for she was certain that she could never have killed a babe, no matter who its father might be. “Take her with you if you can. Otherwise leave her there.”

The corridor was empty, and the Weaver had told her of a sally port through which she could leave the castle undetected. She bent quickly, gathering the babe in her arms, and with one last backward glance at Cresenne, she started toward the west end of the fortress.

She hadn’t even turned the nearest corner, however, when a man appeared before her. He was Qirsi-the fattest man of her race Yaella had ever seen-and he smiled a greeting when he first saw her. But then his eyes strayed to the child and he slowed his gait. Looking past her, he saw Cresenne, his pale eyes widening.

“Demons and fire!” he said, halting and blocking her way. “What have you done to her?”

She pulled her dagger free again and held it before her. The man appeared to falter at the sight of it, but only for the briefest moment.

“Give me the child!” he said. “Now!”

Yaella laid the blade on the babe’s throat. “I’ll kill her.”

Again he hesitated, glancing at Cresenne once more and licking his lips nervously, as if he saw his own future in her fate. He was sweating like an overworked horse and Yaella thought she could see his hands quaking. At last, though, he shook his head. “I don’t believe you will. Your masters sent you here for the babe. They’ll be angry if she dies.”

I don’t want the child harmed. This was probably no more than conjecture on the part of the fat man, but it was unnervingly accurate. Her eyes flicked to the child, who was screaming. A dark lump had swelled on the babe’s forehead, no doubt where she had struck the floor when her mother dropped her.

“They want me to join them. They don’t care about the child.”

“You’re lying.”

“Not about my willingness to kill her. If you let me go, I promise she’ll be safe. You’re right: I was sent to kill the mother and bring back the child. The Weaver will see that she’s cared for.”

The man stared at her. “A Weaver?”

She hadn’t time for this. It was only a matter of time before they were discovered by soldiers of the king.

“Yes, a Weaver. And he doesn’t deal kindly with those who meddle in his affairs. Now out of my way.”

“A Weaver,” he said again, as if he hadn’t heard. “Of course.”

Yaella could delay no more. She pressed herself against the stone wall and began to edge past the man, still holding the dagger at the babe’s neck.

“Let me pass,” she said.

“Never.” He moved to block her way, just as she knew he would.

With a sudden thrust, she drove the blade into his flesh. She missed his heart, catching him closer to the shoulder, but still the man grunted in pain and slumped against the wall, the dagger jutting from his round body. Yaella hurried to get away from him.

As she reached the corner, however, flames abruptly flared before her, bright and angry, their heat making her flinch.

“Another step and you die!” came a voice from behind her.

Yaella turned at the sound, clutching the child so close to her breast that it began to cry anew. Her dagger was in the fat man. Fire was at her back. And staring at the apparition that faced her now, she felt Bian the Deceiver hovering at her shoulder, waiting to take her to the Underrealm.

* * *

No.

There was comfort to be found in death. Peace at a time when all the land was descending into war. Shelter from all that the Weaver had done to her. Release from a life that had strayed so far from what she had foreseen as a girl.

But no.

It was Bryntelle who reached her. The sound of her crying. Or, more precisely, the retreat of that sound. At first Cresenne thought that she was just fading, the last of her life’s blood draining from the gaping hole in her chest, cold closing in on her, like the snows advancing on Wethyrn’s Crown after a long harvest. But Bryntelle’s cries only retreated for a moment. Then they were joined by voices, a man and a woman. The woman. The one who had done this to her, whose blade had killed her.

But no. Not yet.

The woman was taking her child, or attempting to.

She forced her eyes open, stared up at the stone ceiling. She tried to raise her head so that she might look at the wound, but she hadn’t the strength even for this.

Wouldn’t it just have been easier to surrender, to embrace peace and shelter and release?

She lifted her hand, heavy as a smith’s anvil, and laid it on the wound. Warm blood still flowed, but so weakly. A trickle compared with what it should have been. She probed the wound with cold, leaden fingers. Straight as the blade that pierced her flesh, long enough to kill, but easy enough to heal. She reached for her healing magic. Also a trickle, spent like her blood, but not done quite yet. The effort brought tears to her eyes, made her stomach heave. But after a moment the power welled up within her. And the wound began to close. Magic seeped into her, warm against the deadly cold, and the thaw brought with it pain that death’s chill had masked. She gritted her teeth, squeezed her eyes closed once more.

But she did not relent. Bryntelle’s cries still echoed in the corridor, as did the voices.

Soon the wound had closed. She could feel her heart beating within her bruised, aching chest. With more time and more magic, she might have eased the pain somewhat, but she didn’t dare.

Instead, she fought to turn over, gasping with every least movement. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, then clawed her way up the wall beside her until she was standing, her legs nearly buckling, her sight swimming. She saw two figures a short distance away. The woman and Trin.

An instant later something glinted in the dim light and Trin fell back against the stone.

The woman began to stride away. Bryntelle was in her arms.

Cresenne didn’t even think, but merely cast the flame, reaching for the wall once more to keep from collapsing to the stone.

“Another step and you die!”

The woman turned slowly to face her, her cheeks ashen, Bryntelle held before her as if a warrior’s shield. “You should be dead,” she murmured.

“Give me my baby.”

The woman glanced about, as if looking for some path to freedom. “I’ll kill her if I have to.”