by Grace Draven
“I’ve dealt with more cantankerous creatures than dragons,” Ami informed her airily, sliding a hard-eyed look at me, so I wouldn’t mistake her meaning. “They’re easy to chase off, despite their growling. Cowards at heart.”
The duchess, far too refined to reveal if she understood the undercurrents, simply waved her hand as yet another sleigh pulling up, drawn by more horses from her stables. “If I cannot dissuade Your Highness, I can at least send along decorations and supplies. Glorianna only knows what a musty mess Windroven is. Sadly, the moonflowers can’t withstand the cold, so I’m sending silk ones—and directions for sewing more so your maids can do that, in case they don’t know how. You must at least have the traditional treats and wines for the Feast.” She frowned at the sleigh as if it had failed her in some terrible fashion. “Oh, I hate to think of our queen having such a tatty Feast of Moranu. Give me another hour and I’ll—”
“Thank you, Veronica, for everything.” Ami embraced the duchess, cutting her off, then strolled toward the sleighs, calling out a question to Graves. Her skirts and trailing cloak left a wide swath of cleared snow behind her, punctuated by the steps of her little boots.
I stared at the trail, my attention caught. Or perhaps it was the lack of sleep catching up with me, because I shook my head to clear it of the trance when the duchess put her hand on my arm.
“It’s not easy,” she murmured to me, “to love a woman of higher station.”
“Your Grace, I—”
“You know exactly what I mean.” She raised her brows, stern as any teacher. “Nor is it easy for a woman of station to love a man of lower rank. I should know. It’s a delicate balance. Especially with a man who is a true leader.” Squeezing my upper arm, she made an appreciative moue, eyes sparkling with mischief. “We like our men strong and manly, as much as the next woman, or more. Dominant in the bedroom,” she murmured meaningfully, and I seriously hoped she hadn’t made me blush. “I know how it is. I’m not so old that I don’t enjoy much the same.” She nodded knowingly, her gaze straying to a large man in her personal guard, Dasnarian by his bulk and coloring. The duchess put gloved fingers under my chin, turning me to face her again. “Never think it’s easy for her, to balance that.”
I searched for an appropriate reply and came up empty. The honest truth about Ami was something I’d never betray by speaking aloud. I knew better than perhaps anyone all the opposing forces Ami juggled behind her frivolous exterior. I understood very well how much she struggled to be strong and confident, to compensate for the holes inside left by a mother who perished shortly after giving birth to her, sisters who left her behind, and a husband who died far too young. People looked at her and saw Queen Amelia of Avonlidgh, avatar of Glorianna, and the most beautiful woman alive.
Ami said I didn’t see her, but I did. I knew her heart better than my own. Which meant I understood full well how difficult our love affair made everything for her.
She’d called herself selfish, but that flaw belonged to me. I’d only added to her troubles, wanting to eke out more time with her, when I would have helped her most by absenting myself from the complications of her life.
Ami needed to move on, to consolidate her position as queen, to find her way as a mother, to think about who her king should be. Maybe even some time just to be herself, not to worry about who she danced with or how to balance her loves with her responsibilities. She deserved a man who could be a real husband to her, who could help her rule.
One that her nobles like the Duchess of Lianore wouldn’t have to resort to subterfuges of false titles to accommodate.
I bowed deeply to the duchess, thanking her for her advice—and for her concern.
“We love our queen,” she told me with the fervency of absolute honesty. “Take care of her for us. Promise me, Lord Sousbois.”
I promised I would, not caring for the bitter taste of the lie.
The rest of the journey to Windroven went extraordinarily quickly—so much so that I’d have believed Ami’s claim that Glorianna smoothed our way. One of many phenomena that made me think she might truly be Glorianna’s avatar. Both the woman and the goddess liked to arrange things to suit themselves.
And both seemed to relish their hold on me. Most Tala, even part-bloods, look to Moranu, the goddess of trickery and mutability. But from my earliest days, even before I took my vow to the White Monks, formally consecrating myself to Glorianna, I’d felt the hand of the goddess of morning. My mother had been devout in Glorianna’s worship, as most good country girls were, and I’d put down my own devotion to the goddess as early childhood indoctrination.
With the path my life had followed since… It might be better to say that Glorianna had wrapped one fist around my heart and the other around my cock—merrily leading me by both.
As if she heard the irreverent thought, Ami turned to look at me then, her eyes so blue they pierced me even from a distance. She crooked a finger at me, a slight smile on her face, enjoying playing with me. Because I, of course, hastened immediately to her side.
“We’re here just in time,” she said, gesturing at the mountain climbing against the darkening sky. “Another storm is coming in off the ocean.”
I squinted at the clouds wreathing the turrets of the castle and highest crags of the sleeping volcano. Though I didn’t need to. I’d been watching the storm approach since it first darkened the horizon, like a rippling banner showing where Windroven lay. Some long-ago Avonlidgh royal had decided the quiescent volcanic mountain made the perfect foundation for a fortress. Castle Windroven had been built into and of the stone, so that its towers took the place of the long-gone peak of the mountain. In many places the architecture had been designed so deftly that the walls were indistinguishable from the base of igneous rock.
As a fortress, it worked beautifully. With a sheer drop to the sea at its back, the old volcano enjoyed an unparalleled vista of rich and flat farmland on all other sides. Windroven could not be approached undetected. The steep-sided peak itself defied scaling, leaving the winding road the sole access to the castle. On other occasions, the people of Avonlidgh would be lining that road to shower their queen, prince, and princess with rose petals and adulation. But most of the nearby denizens had fled for the winter, letting their farmlands sleep under the deep snows—and getting as far from the threatening volcano as possible.
Wiser than we.
“Those aren’t only storm clouds,” I told Ami, and pointed at the obscured turrets. “See there? That’s smoke. There’s a column of it rising up behind the castle. Look around you at the snow. It’s gray with ash. The volcano is active.”
“Rumbling only,” she replied. “I’m not concerned. Glorianna will watch over us.”
“Your Highness—”
“Speaking of fretting,” Ami cut me off, “isn’t this your opportunity to leave? No sense making the trip to the top only to go back down again.” She gestured to the road that curved to meet up with us again. “In another hour’s ride you could be at the inn at the crossroads. I’d hate for you to be traveling still when the snow hits.”
I’d stiffened, stricken with the imminence of parting, a stinging retort ready on my tongue until that last. Ami meant it. Despite her hurt and anger, she didn’t want me at risk. Her eyes told the tale, even as she firmed her trembling lips and looked away to stare at the belching mountain. Perfectly apt that the home she’d so readily adopted was both spectacular and treacherous.
“I’m safe at home, Ash,” she said. “I won’t keep you from your life’s path any longer. It would mean a great deal to me, if—” She swallowed hard against something. More tears, maybe. But when she met my gaze, her eyes weren’t damp, but hard and bright as Lianore’s diamonds. “I’d like to know that you’re safe, too. I know I might never hear from you again, so let me imagine that. You, warm and fed—and just at the inn down the road. Where I can pretend to myself that I could go. Take an hour’s ride, and lurk in the shadows, and just…reassure myself
.”
“Ami,” I said, my voice more broken than usual. Words as always escaped me.
“A silly fantasy. I know you won’t stay there or anything.”
“And you could never lurk in the shadows,” I managed with a half-smile.
She laughed, a little watery, a lot brittle. The sound made me want to hold her, and I must have moved like I might dismount, because she held up a hand. “I feel like we’ve said goodbye so many times already. Would you do me this favor and just go. Now. Like you’re off to scout ahead.”
I glanced at the other sleigh, where the twins still slept with their nurses. They’d be up all night again, but I’d miss it. And I wouldn’t get to say goodbye to them. Though that was likely just as well. It would only confuse and upset them.
Ami followed my line of sight, then met my gaze again. “Please.”
A more articulate man would have thought of parting words. Something meaningful, for her and for me, to remember in the days ahead.
But I only nodded, bowing from the waist, and turned my horse’s head toward the road leading away from Windroven.
~ 6 ~
Ami’s scream rent the air.
I knew it well—even at a distance. So well that I’d already wheeled my horse around and with one mind we leapt into a flat-out gallop before I even processed what the sound was. So many times we’d drilled this alarm system, during those days we’d traveled through the Wild Lands and into Annfwn seeking Stella. I’d taught Ami how to wield a short blade and the considerable power of her lungs, to protect herself long enough for me to get to her.
Snow flew in a blizzard of our own making as my steed and I barreled down the road at top speed. Had I the ability, I would have taken wing to get there faster. My heart pounded as if I were the one running.
I should never have left her.
We passed the fork and followed the road, though the sleigh tracks veered to cut across the fallow snow-covered fields. The mare couldn’t go as fast in the soft drifts as we could on the snow-packed road, which still wasn’t fast enough. In the vast open whiteness, I should be able to see…
There. So far out.
At my signal, we bounded off the road, lurching through the drifts, making for the dark spots of the line of sleighs. Other shapes darted in and out, worrying the outriders like wolves attacking a herd, trying for the vulnerable center.
Blood boiled in my ears, my thighs clamped around the horse, urging the gelding on, feeling as if I tried to lift him up through each lunge. With screaming urgency, I wanted to leap from his back and go it myself, but I knew, knew, I’d only go more slowly. Never had I more bitterly regretted my inability to shapeshift.
Ami had stopped screaming—I only hoped because she trusted I’d heard and was on my way, not because she couldn’t—and the only sounds other than the whisk of wind over snow were the grunts of Graves and his men, fighting the silent beasts.
As I watched, still helplessly too far away, a horse and rider went down, the black-furred shapes swarming it. My own gelding and I caught the scent at the same time, the sticky sweetness of corruption, of magic-born undeath. He faltered in his great-hearted speed, wanting to balk, and I ruthlessly clamped down on his mind, forcing him to go on.
It made me as bad as those black-souled practitioners of Deyrr who’d surely created the attacking creatures—I knew that smell far too well from the siege at Ordnung—but in that moment I only cared about one thing. The one person I’d barter my own soul to save.
Ami. I had to get to Ami.
I caught a flash of her face, stark in the whiteness, the flame of her hair a blaze of promise that she yet lived. Then she disappeared, crouching down into the sleigh. Two of the animals fighting had to be the Tala nurses—one in wolf form, the other a big cat—worrying the attacking creatures. No sign of the twins, so hopefully Ami was sitting on them.
I plunged into the fight on the weakest side, swinging my sword to decapitate a black wolf-like creature. It went down silently, staining the snow with black ichor that had long since ceased to be blood. We’d have to go back and chop them up, then burn them, as the pieces would keep on going in their unnatural way. For the moment, disabling them was key. Graves and his men hadn’t been at Ordnung, had never fought these things, and so wouldn’t know that until too late.
“Chop off the heads!” I shouted to Graves. “Disable, then kill.”
He nodded, the other men hearing and changing their defense. The habitual response is to stab and wound when wolves attack. Cutting off their heads takes too long with a normal creature. But these weren’t natural and they never bled out, never flinched from pain. It changes the battle from one of pitting cleverness and courage against a worthy enemy to hacking apart a mindless scourge.
I took off two more heads. Shapeshifter speed lent me a certain strength and leverage the other men couldn’t match. I carved my way through the pack, getting to Ami. One of the creatures climbed into the sleigh just before I got there. I went after it. I leapt off my horse and into the sled, grappling the beast, which snarled and writhed in my grip with unnatural strength.
Dropping my sword—in such close quarters, I ran too much risk of accidentally striking Ami or the kids if they got in the way of the long blade—I throttled the thing with one forearm, wrestling it back, and wishing I’d thought to draw my short blade.
“Ash!” Ami’s eyes were wild blue—and far too close to the beast’s slavering jaws as it snapped and lunged at her in eerie silence. To stop it, I thrust the meat of my other arm between its jaws, uncaring that it mindlessly savaged me. The pain fueled me. And better my arm than her throat. Ami, face contorted in horror, reared up, short blade fisted in both hands, and drove it into the beast’s eye. A good strategy, with a normal creature. This one, of course, didn’t falter.
But she gave me the blade I needed.
I let go the beast’s throat, hauling it back by dint of my arm in its jaws, yanked the blade out and drove it into the spinal column at the back of its head. Black ichor sprayed my face and I pressed my lips tight against accidentally getting any of the poisonous shit in my mouth. It still mindlessly chewed, lurching to push through my restraint, and I sawed through its neck. A laborious and grim task. No speed or leverage to help me, only determination.
At last the head separated from the body, though the jaws remained locked on my arm, still gnawing away. A bright haze of shock surrounded everything with halos of light as I lifted the creature’s body and threw it out of the sleigh with vehemence. It slogged through the snow, searching for prey it could no longer detect.
All of the creatures seemed to be headless now, similarly confused, and Graves and his men—along with the Tala—were working methodically to dismember them all.
“Ash!” Ami’s voice grated harshly, no music in it, and she pulled the blade from my hand. “Glorianna take you, sit down before you pass out.”
She began sawing at the tendons in the beast’s jaw, cutting the magically animated muscles that gave it strength. Black ichor and my bright red blood fountained over her white and gold gown, no doubt ruining it forever. Ami shouldn’t be covered in gore like this.
“Your dress,” I managed and she threw me a ferocious glare.
“Shut up, you stupid, stupid man. I don’t care about the fucking dress!” The lower jaw fell away and the head, losing its hold, dropped to the floor of the sleigh. The twins shrieked, popping tousled heads—one bright, one dark—from beneath the furry blanket where Ami had indeed been sitting on them. They screamed again when the beast’s remaining eye blinked at them, the upper lip lifting over fangs in a snarl.
I grabbed it by the ear with my good hand and flung the head as far away from them as I could. For good measure, I sent the lower jaw after it. As if that sapped the last of my strength, my legs gave out, and I sat heavily.
Ami was cursing me steadily, tearing strips from her gown to bandage my arm. “If you don’t die, I’m going to kill you,” she muttered. Blo
od and ichor streaked her face, making her look like Glorianna as warrior.
“I’m all right,” I told her. “Don’t worry. I need to—”
“You need to shut up and sit. You’ve already lost too much blood.”
“Are you hurt?” I tried to sit up, suddenly seized with the fear that the blood might not be all mine. “The twins?”
“We are fine,” she bit out. “It’s you who’s hurt, which is thriced inconvenient since you can heal anyone but yourself. Why would you be so contrary? Just to make me crazy, I’m sure.”
I watched her, bemused by her ferocity. The twins had pulled the blanket back over their heads and held on to each other. They’d have bad dreams now. So young for their first nightmares. I’d failed to save them from that.
Ami might have been right about the blood loss, because lightning-streaked black edged around the corners of my vision, which had gone blurry.
“Tell Graves he needs to burn the pieces, too.”
“I will. Stay with me. You’ll be fine.”
“I love you, Ami. You’ve been the one bright spot in my life.”
“Now he gets verbose,” she muttered, tying a knot in the bandages viciously tight. “Too tight. Too tight,” she was saying, “but I’d rather he lose the arm than bleed out, right? I don’t know how in Glorianna we’re going to heal him.”
“Leave me here,” I managed.
She rolled her gorgeous eyes at me and seized my jaw in a surprisingly firm grip. Staring fiercely into my eyes, she spoke slowly and clearly. “No one is leaving you. Let me handle things for once. I’m not some fragile moonflower who can’t survive the cold, okay?”
I smiled at that image. No, my Ami was no moonflower. She was a rose: lush, lovely, and full of lethal thorns.
The blackness swamped me and I went under.
~ 7 ~
The prisoners roared. Rioting again. I clamped my hands over my ears, terrified that they’d find me. The guards always vanished themselves during the riots. They didn’t care what the men did to each other. If we killed each other off, beat each other down, and exhausted ourselves doing it, all the better.