upon her healing magic. She merely knelt beside Evanthya, sobbing until her throat ached, watching her love’s life bleed away.
“Fetnalla,” Evanthya said again, barely able to make herself heard.
Fetnalla leaned close to her, tears falling from her face and darkening Evanthya’s cloak like rain. “I’m right beside you.”
“Don’t let him win. The Weaver. Don’t let him.”
“You shouldn’t worry about him. You shouldn’t worry about any of it. We’ll go away. Just you and me, just like we talked about.”
“Look what he’s done to me, Fetnalla. He can’t win. He’ll do this to everything.”
She bent and kissed her love’s lips, which were as cold as mountain water. “Hush,” she said. “Save your strength.”
“No. My strength. Is for you. Fight him.”
Somehow, Evanthya managed to take Fetnalla’s hand in her own. The pressure of her fingers was so light that Fetnalla hardly felt it at all. Yet she sensed that Evanthya was squeezing with all her might.
“My strength to you,” she murmured.
“My love,” Fetnalla whispered, kissing Evanthya’s brow.
She made no reply.
“Evanthya?”
Fetnalla stared down at her. Evanthya’s eyes were still open, but her breast rose no more, and her hand had gone limp. Fetnalla kissed that hand, crying still, gazing at her love’s face. It remained just as she remembered from the day they met, her skin as smooth as a child’s, the small lines around her mouth making it seem that she was ready to break into a smile at any moment. After some time, Fetnalla let the hand fall, and closed her love’s eyes. She wiped her tears, but they wouldn’t stop.
At last, she looked up at Pronjed. He stood a short distance from her, still holding his sword, eyeing her warily.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly I am. But the Weaver…”
“Yes,” she said. “The Weaver.”
“I was prepared to let the two of you go, if it had come to that.”
“The Weaver wouldn’t have been so generous. He’d have found us, and he probably would have punished you, as well.”
“I’d like to sheath my sword.”
“I’m a shaper, Pronjed. If I wanted to avenge her, your sword wouldn’t stop me.”
“I’m a shaper, too. You should know that.”
Fetnalla climbed to her feet, shaking her head. “We’re not going to fight,” she said, and meant it.
Pronjed might have struck the killing blow, but Evanthya’s blood wasn’t on his hands any more than it was on hers. Or any less. Hadn’t she chosen not to save her? Didn’t that make her as responsible as Pronjed for Evanthya’s murder? In the end, neither of them had much choice. The Weaver had made it clear some time ago that he wanted Evanthya dead. Both she and Pronjed were merely following his commands.
She crossed her arms over her chest, shivering in the night air. “As you said, how else was this going to end?”
“Thank you for understanding,” he said, returning his blade to its sheath. “I was hoping that you and I would ride north together.”
Fetnalla found that she was staring at Evanthya again. She hadn’t meant to. In fact, she tried to look at anything other than her beloved’s body, but she couldn’t help herself. “North,” she repeated absently.
“Yes. To join with the Weaver’s army. He’s expecting us. We ride to war tomorrow, First Minister. Surely you knew that.”
She nodded. Tomorrow. Yes, she had assumed that it would be soon. It might as well be tomorrow.
“I think we should leave here,” Pronjed said.
She was still doing it. Staring at Evanthya. Shouldn’t they have built her a pyre? Didn’t her love deserve that much?
“First Minister? Fetnalla.”
It was her name that reached through the haze in her mind. She tore her eyes from Evanthya’s face and looked at the archminister. He was watching her, concern written on his bony features.
“You should saddle your horse,” he told her, “and gather whatever you need to take with you. I’ll … I’ll see to the rest.”
Somewhere, deep in her mind, a small voice cried out in protest. Who was this man to give her orders? Who was he to offer his sympathy and his friendship? But she hadn’t the will to resist. She stepped to where her saddle lay, put it on her steed, and began to fasten the straps. Once it was secured, she turned, glancing about her camp, feeling that surely she was forgetting something. All she saw, however, was Evanthya, blood staining her cloak, firelight warming her cheek.
After several moments, Pronjed returned, frowning as he glanced back into the darkness.
“Do you have language of beasts?” he asked.
“No. Evanthya did.”
“I can’t get her horse to leave or come with me. It just stands there. Could you-?”
“No. As long as she’s here, he’ll stay just where he is.”
“Someone may see it.”
Fetnalla glanced at Evanthya, then quickly made herself look away. “It can’t be helped.”
“No, I suppose it can’t.” He hesitated. Then, “Are you ready?”
She nodded and swung herself onto her horse, refusing now to gaze at her love.
“We’re part of a great cause, First Minister,” Pronjed said gently, as if he might comfort her with such words. “We’re going to change the world. Some, I’m afraid, simply weren’t ready for the future the Weaver has envisioned.”
Hadn’t she told herself much the same thing several times since leaving Aneira? Since murdering Brall? Evanthya could never understand all that the Weaver had given to Fetnalla and others devoted to his cause. She could never embrace the true meaning of the Weaver’s movement. Her view of the world was too narrow, too strongly tied to old notions of loyalty and service. Each time Fetnalla considered what it might mean to kill her love, that was how she justified it.
Chapter Twenty-three
Cresenne held Bryntelle in her arms, watching the morning dawn from the ramparts atop Audun’s Castle. A light wind sweeping down off the Caerissan Steppe rustled the pennons above them. The eastern sky glowed pink and orange, like the flames conjured this past night by the sorcerers who came to the castle.
The Revel was in the City of Kings, chased south from the coastal cities by invasion and war. Usually the festival would be in Thorald now, having arrived there from Galdasten. But with the Braedony invasion, the performers had fled across the Moorlands to the safety of the City of Kings. Here they had remained for the better part of a turn, awaiting word that the invaders had been repelled so that they might resume their journeys across Eibithar.
It seemed the people of the city had grown weary of the performances, for last night the fire sorcerers and tumblers had come to the castle, where they performed for the queen and those soldiers who had remained behind when Kearney marched to war. For Cresenne, who remained a prisoner in the castle, and who had spent countless nights in solitude, walking the corridors of the fortress or the empty paths of the castle gardens, the performers provided a welcome diversion. For Bryntelle, they were a spectacle.
