"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c21_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)
21
CEREMONY OF SACRIFICE
Our dear old protector.” Emeriene stood beside the high-backed, decorative chair where Cyndere sulked, and she reached behind it to touch Bauris’s arm. “It’s so good to be back here with you again. Even though times are different now.”
Under a dimming sky of scattered clouds, an assembly of soldiers, sisterlies, and staff had gathered with Cyndere on the towerhouse rooftop. While they turned their attention to the tower, which stood illuminated in the rays of a cold sunset, Cyndere’s gaze remained downcast. On this night of solemn ceremony, she had invited Bauris to stand at her right hand and Emeriene at her left. Despite the honor of such a request, Cyndere knew that Bauris accepted only out of a sense of duty. He would have preferred, as Tilianpurth’s senior officer, the privilege of participating in the ceremony on the top of the tower. She knew that he wished to stand beside Ryllion and sharpen the ceremonial blade. But she needed someone close at hand whose love for her surpassed mere formality, someone who would respond predictably to the charade she was about to perform.
Emeriene, meanwhile, had reluctantly accepted, making noise about an earlier invitation from Ryllion to sit at the front of the assembly.
“I remember,” Bauris was saying. “You ladies were trouble back then.”
“Oh, we’re still prone to the same troubles and rebellions,” Emeriene remarked, and Cyndere did not miss the note of bitterness at the end of the line.
“Remember the stories my brother always asked you to tell out there?”
“The legend of Inius Throan,” Bauris nodded. “Partayn loved to hear how Tammos Raak freed the children from captivity beyond the Forbidding Wall.”
Emeriene scowled. “I used to have nightmares about the curses that bound those people in the north. I still sometimes get a chill, thinking about those phantoms in your stories, the figures that creep down from the mountains. Snatchers, you called them. Northchildren.”
“Such a terrible thought, captivity,” Cyndere murmured. “Out here we’re so free.”
“What’s that?” Bauris asked.
“Emeriene doesn’t like the forest anymore,” she said, and she drew her arm across her brow. “Is it very warm tonight?” To escape the cruel grip of this pageant, she would have to make a scene.
Emeriene watched the tower, anxious. “No, I didn’t say that I don’t like the forest. I only said that the woods have become dangerous. Everybody knows that. I’m fond of memories too, my lady. Perhaps you remember that you used to treat me as a faithful friend.”
“I’m surrounded by faithful friends,” said Cyndere. “So faithful, they ignore my desires and decide what’s best for me. They place guards at every door so I cannot walk where I please. Like last night…”
The guard’s long, grey mustache did not conceal his deepening frown. “You do still bicker like arrogant girls. I remember those days. You’d argue and compete to win Partayn’s attention or mine. Nothing’s changed.” He glanced at the eager audience. “He was always more interested in music than games. I remember the day he blew those first seven notes on a shiny new hewson-pipe. It was like he’d been waiting to play them. He took hold of that line and played it over and over. Haunting, really. I wake up thinking of that little song.”
Emeriene and Cyndere were stricken silent, sobered.
“Now, pay attention. This is going to be exciting. For the good of our house, Ryllion’s going to make his appeal to the moon-spirits and sacrifice a beastman. How I wish he’d let me take the first shot. I’ve never yet fought one, you know.”
“Here’s a tip,” snapped Cyndere. “Ryllion’s decided to post a guard in the corridor beside the kitchen. Perhaps he suspects the beastman will raid the cupboards. You should look into it.”
She let her hands drift into the folds of her gown where she had concealed a bottle of pepperdust, taken from her midday meal. “It’s the cold,” she said. “I shouldn’t be out here at twilight. I’ll catch a plague.”
“You’re as safe as the rest of us. We’re all here, Cyndere. Everyone in Tilianpurth, from Bauris to the greenest of the stablehands.” Emeriene, furious, strode to the front of the assembly.
I’m depending on that, she thought.
The night before, she had learned the extent of the rift between her and her devoted sisterly when she tiptoed down the stairs and discovered a guard lurking in the kitchen. She had to find a chance to slip past him and get back out to the forest in case Jordam returned. It might be her only chance to put Deuneroi’s plan into action. It was what she had left to do. Giving that up, she would be trapped in the path leading to her mother’s throne and the Seers’ constant surveillance.
Pretor Xa leaned over the battlement atop the tower, gazing down like a predatory bird. Magisterial, he waited until the gathering quieted in a reverent hush. On either side of him at the corners of the tower’s crown, torches flared orange against the grey. Beneath a dark ceremonial headdress, his chalk white face looked all the more skullish. He seemed absorbed in thought. He raised his hands, and the people trembled, for it was as if he had choreographed the skies himself—the green crescent moon emerged from behind a cloud in the space of sky between his open hands.
In a soft voice that somehow reached each soldier, sisterly, and privileged servant on the rooftop and those gathered in the yard below—servants, stablehands, and soldiers—Pretor Xa led them back to the simple glories of House Cent Regus before its miserable decline. He brought them to those famous feasting tables. He recited poetry about their fields and farms.
Then he showed them the first signs of disintegration. The Cent Regus farmers, he explained, had failed to acknowledge their moon-spirits. They had not offered sacrifices, as the people of Bel Amica would this cold night. Fearful of violating their traditions, they had not pursued new dreams with passion. But the spirits, he reminded them, demand respect.
“The spirits are pleased when we follow our hearts. We must not be swayed by pity for those who made the wrong choices. We must not try to interfere. The Cent Regus have brought the spirits’ punishment upon themselves.”
Bauris blinked. It was a strange declaration. He was puzzling over it when something fell against his side.
Cyndere was slipping from her chair, clutching at her throat. “Help me,” she whispered. Her eyes were blood-red and streaming with tears. Her face flushed, beaded with sweat. “A fever.”
Bauris helped her lean back into the chair. She pressed her hand to her breast, and her breath came in gasps. Around her, the sisterlies in ceremony robes were wide-eyed in alarm, as distressed by the disruption of formalities as by the heiress. Emeriene, near the front of the assembly, had not noticed.
“Tonight we follow our hearts,” Pretor Xa declared, clearly enamored of his own eloquence. “We lift up a sacrifice to let the spirits know what we, in unison, desire. And when they see a picture of this, the spirits will put aside their own disputes and deign to grant us our request. They’ve taken land. Treasure. They’ve taken the heir to the throne, and they’ve taken Cyndere’s consort. For our sacrifice we offer up a beastman.”
Even though they knew it was coming, the people responded noisily, with anger and eagerness for justice.
“In some of us goodness grapples with corruption. But not the Cent Regus. Contrary to what some, in their compassion, would tell you, there are people bad to the marrow.”
“Watch, my lady,” Bauris whispered to Cyndere. In the dimming light, Pretor Xa loomed like a puppet in a shadow play. “You’ll feel better when you see the abomination receive his just—”
Cyndere dug her nails into his arm, and her crimson, crying eyes stared into his. “I can’t see.” She fell forward onto her knees. With a collective gasp, the sisterlies crowded around her, their dresses sliding across the floor with a rush.
“Take her inside,” Bauris growled through his teeth. “Quietly.”
The silhouette on the tower paused, then continued with even more drama, determined to hold the crowd’s attention. But he had all the help he needed, for Ryllion had taken the stage.
The stout and naked beastman facing Ryllion seemed a musclebound soldier in costume, with shaggy white hair like thick trousers on his legs, hooves black as boots, and a hooded snake’s head. His eyes glittered like polished black beads.
Sword in his right hand, Ryllion snapped the fingers of his left. No one in the audience below would notice the signal. Nor would they witness the response—a tile on the rooftop lifted, and a guard thrust his head and arms out from beneath it and swiftly fired a tiny pin from an arrowcaster directly into the beastman’s thigh. The creature winced, hissing. His leg buckled. His forked tongue lashed. As Ryllion advanced, the archer dropped down, and the hatch closed over him.
The bolt’s poison would confuse the beastman for a while, but it would not finish him. Ryllion wanted the satisfaction of the kill. He was confident he could slay the creature in a fair and open fight, but this was not meant to be a contest. It was a ceremony, symbolic. There was too much at stake here to risk having anything go wrong.
He raised his sword, raised a cheer from the crowd. Then he sheathed it and drew a smaller, ornamental blade instead. Deuneroi’s dagger. The better for ceremony.
But as his hand closed around the blade, he hesitated, his gaze drawn to a glimmering figure on the edge of his vision.
In that instant the beastman hissed a harsh stream of viscous venom into Ryllion’s eyes. He threw his arm across his face, staggered sideways, and cried out. The beastman howled. Ryllion felt a blow to his chest from both of the beastman’s hard hind hooves. He was cast up, away, over the low south wall into open space.
For an instant he saw the green moon. The four torches framing the square where he had fought. The crowd on the rooftop, the assembly in the yard. Stars emerging from dusk blue. The long drop to the grassy yard below. And the ground rushing up to meet him.
Cyndere lay on her bed, her head sunk into pillows, biting her tongue while the pepperdust burnt. She felt as if she’d inhaled the whole bottle through her nose. She could only see blurred images of her sisterlies scurrying about.
One of them cast a cold, wet towel across her forehead and her eyes. Another clutched her hand and appealed to her moon-spirit, asking for healing and intervention. She heard another draw back the heavy curtains, felt the rush of cold night air, smelled candle smoke and oil—they were placing spirit bowls on the windowsill in hopes of drawing the spirits’ gaze.
She tried to ignore their chatter, gathering her strength and courage and thinking through her plan once more.
“What is in this incense bowl?” one of the sisterlies asked.
“Blue flowers. Her favorite incense.”
“Light it then.”
Cyndere felt her tension ease as she breathed in a cloud of calm, blue light. Her determination grew. She felt poised for a daring jump.
“Bring me a pile of clean towels,” she said, her voice scorched by the pepper. “Quickly. Then you must return to the ceremony at once. Moon-spirits…they’ll be troubled to find you absent.”
“But, my lady—”
“I need the towels to wrap myself in perfumes and drive away the plague. But first I’ll pray here. Beside the window.”
The sisterlies crowded together, frightened pearbellies with ruffled feathers. And then they scuttled from the room, drawing the door closed behind them.
Slowly the details of the room came into focus. Clean towels rested just inside the door. The basket of tetherwings, undisturbed, waited in the closet. The bag packed with strips of dried meat and fruit. The woodscloak. Everything she needed.
“It’s time, Deuneroi. This is it.”
Without thinking, she began to hum the seven notes of Partayn’s pipe song.
After a moment of silence, the beastman on the tower trilled a triumphant cry.
“Bauris.” Emeriene ran to him, her hands on her face. “Bauris, it’s killed Ryllion.” She looked about for Cyndere. “Where…where is she?”
Bauris stepped out from the row of terrified observers and unsheathed his sword. “Kill it! Somebody kill it!”
The riot of the distraught crowd echoed across the roof of the towerhouse. Further dismay rose in chorus from those in the yard below. Soldiers shouted frantic orders. And then at a sharp command, their arrows crowded the air, sharp tips catching the last rays of the setting winter sun and glittering like sparks before they rained down on the tower. The beastman dodged, darting about in his limited range. He strained at the end of his chain, trying to reach one of the torches mounted on the tower’s edge.
Emeriene turned away. Gasps of disappointment told her the shots had failed. She saw three guards break from their formation around the crowd and enter the tower for a quick ascent, hands on sword hilts.
They appeared at the top of the tower. One man held the base of a net. A man and a woman held corners and advanced.
Crouching, the beastman let them sweep it over him. Then he seized the net’s strong strands and pulled fast and hard, catching the guards by surprise. One stumbled backward against the wall. The other tried to let go, but his hand caught in a tangle. The beastman pulled and pulled, drawing the desperate guard in like an animal in a trap. Emeriene saw the guard raised up and thrown down. The beastman seized the guard’s sword.
Stunned onlookers watched the net thrashing. The beastman looked like a giant spider killing its prey in the middle of a web.
The soldier who held the base of the net released it and unsheathed his sword. But the beastman bounded toward him, dragging the net along, and cast the stolen sword forward, neatly pinning the soldier to the low wall of the rooftop.
The last remaining guard unharnessed her arrowcaster from its strap on her back and leveled it at the approaching monster. But a new roar tore the night. The crowd went silent.
A familiar silhouette stood against the moon. Ryllion. Dagger in hand, he advanced toward the beastman as if he had never been cast down.
“How?” Emeriene gasped. “How’d he get back up there?”
“Moon-spirits,” whispered Bauris, awe-struck. “His moon-spirit saved him. He’s alive. He’s alive!”
Like a predator defying others to come near, Ryllion turned upon the guardswoman with a searing command. She dropped to her knees. Then he advanced toward the net-tangled beastman.
Forked tongue flicking in and out, the creature fought with the net, trying to reach the edge and climb free. As he did, he backed away from the transformed man until he reached the extent of his chain.
Ryllion stopped, held his left arm straight, as if measuring some distance, and then cast Deuneroi’s dagger skyward like a spear.
The beastman watched it soar, reach the apex of its flight, turn, and plunge tip-first back down. The creature jumped from its path, and into Ryllion, who had anticipated the move. The soldier had lunged the moment he cast the blade, snatching two fallen arrows, one of which was now wedged deeply between the creature’s ribs.
Hissing, the beastman tried to spray venom at his attacker, but Ryllion drove the other arrow up to pin the creature’s mouth shut. Then he uprooted the first arrow, and air from the creature’s lungs whistled out through the puncture. Ryllion threw him down.
In that moment, as murmurs of amazement rippled through the crowd, Ryllion felt he could conquer anything. Anything. He snatched up his dagger and slashed at the air, wishing he had another beastman to fight. A strange fever had seized him, and he knew that if he chose to leap down from this great height into the crowd on the towerhouse roof, he could do so and laugh at their bewilderment. The wind moaned, and a torch at the edge of the tower fluttered in its current. He seized it from its hold and waved it back and forth in the sky as if to write his name there.
A cheer from the crowd on the towerhouse roof caused him to look down. Pretor Xa stood at the edge of the crowd staring up with that ever-present grin.
A chill ran through him, driving out the fever of his pride. He felt suddenly awkward, as if waking from a vivid dream to find himself standing on a stage. What was he doing here prancing around like some sort of conqueror? Bewilderment choked him, and he looked down at the fallen beastman. He remembered venom spraying his face, and he could still feel flesh burning around his eyes. He had taken a hard hit from those powerful hooves. He remembered the fall. But the impact—he could not recall landing in the yard. And then he was climbing, climbing up the tower in a blur of motion, as if some invisible line were raising him up through the air. Something had carried him, something within and yet beyond him.
His hands began to throb in their grip on the dagger’s hilt and the torch.
This had not been Ryllion’s plan. This was not what he had invited the people to witness. The sacred Ceremony of Sacrifice was meant to inspire Cyndere and the people of Bel Amica with a taste of justice. He had meant to quiet his own conscience. And above all, he had intended to lead his people in a unified plea to their moon-spirits, demonstrating a shared desire to vanquish the abominable Cent Regus and gain sovereignty over the Expanse.
Instead, here he was, laughing and savoring the uproar. Posturing like some brutish bear-tamer in a Bel Amican circus, he found himself waving as if to goad the onlookers to praise him.
He shifted his stance, pushing his arms back out to show refusal of the praise. He raised the torch again. “For Deuneroi!” he howled, anxious to steer the ceremony back to its proper course.
An awkward silence fell over the assembly. The torch flapped and licked at the air. A cloud passed in front of the moon.
One voice answered him. He recognized it. “For Deuneroi!” Emeriene was shouting. “And for Partayn!” The edge of anger in her voice told him that she was not merely echoing his tribute. She was glad. She was satisfied.
More sisterlies’ voices answered in chorus. And soon the crowd raised the two names—Cyndere’s husband and her brother—in a chant of remembrance.
While the chant ran on, Ryllion leaned back, arms spread wide, and stared into the face of the moon. Tears slid back from his eyes into his hair. “Was it you, Spirit?” he said. “Was it you that saved me? Did you send me the strength? I’m ready, Spirit.” He turned and gazed southward. “I’m ready to carry out the plan. To claim the vision that the Seers have shown me.”
“Sir,” said the swordswoman, backing away from him, “you should get down to the healers.”
“I’m not bleeding. Nothing’s broken.”
“Your eyes. They’re…they’re not right.”
Tilianpurth was full of mirrors, but there were none at the top of the tower. Ryllion raised the dagger and tried to discern his reflection in the blade, but the pale green moonlight was not bright enough to show him a clear image.
He did, however, notice his gloved hand where it gripped the hilt. He turned his gaze to the hand that held the torch, and he saw the same alarming change. His hands had grown. His battle gloves were splitting at the seams. “What is happening?” he whispered, dropping the dagger. He hid his hand behind his back and looked to the swordswoman, trembling.
“Sir?” Bauris had arrived on the top of the tower. But he stopped short when he saw Ryllion’s face and turned away.
“The heiress.” Ryllion cleared his throat, desperate to conceal his confusion. “Is the heiress pleased?”
“Sir, the heiress fell ill. She had to leave the ceremony.”
“What?” Ryllion spun around to scan the towerhouse rooftop. “Cyndere wasn’t there? She didn’t see the sacrifice?” His grip tightened around the torch. “The spirits will be offended. We were to stand together.” He reached out to steady himself, and Bauris rushed to his side.
But Ryllion pushed the soldier away, growling as that feverish zeal spread again and silenced his self-doubt. The surge had carried him up the wall of the tower in a rage, like a hound bounding along even ground in a hunt. Now it carried him forward again, and he brushed Bauris aside, snatching up Deuneroi’s dagger. “Let’s find out what’s really ailing the heiress.”
Emeriene pounded on the door of Cyndere’s chamber. She was shaking, terrified of all she had seen and even more afraid of the way Ryllion’s feat had inspired her to cry out in exultation. The sisterlies crowded in around her, a worried flock of whispering robes, until she scattered them with a curse.
“There’s no answer,” she said. “Who’s in there with her?”
“No one, Sisterly,” said one timid attendant. “The heiress commanded us to return to the ceremony.”
“She gave you orders? She’s in there alone?” Emeriene turned and pressed her forehead against the door. “Idiots! She was pretending. She’s angry with me for spoiling her midnight adventures.” Emeriene struck the door with both fists. “Cyndere! Heiress! My lady! Forgive me. I’ll call off the guards. You can do as you please. Run away. Mope around in the woods all night. I won’t get in your way.”
No voice, no footstep—there was nothing beyond the door.
Emeriene felt a twinge of fear. “Not again.” In her mind she was back at the doorway of Cyndere’s chamber in Bel Amica, discovering the heiress crumpled in a pool of blood with Deuneroi’s dagger in her hand. She had come in time that day.
“I think,” she said with new urgency, “that we have to open this door.”
“I’ll do that,” snarled a monstrous voice. “Get out of the way.”
Ryllion walked toward Cyndere’s door as if it were wide open. He did not stop. Emeriene gasped when she saw his face, the dark scars around his eyes. She leapt aside with a cry. He kicked the door so mightily that it ripped off its hinges, skidded into the room, and fell flat with a crash.
The candle flames in Cyndere’s chamber leaned away from Ryllion. A faint hint of the blue perfume swirled in the air around them and faded.
“Ryllion!” Emeriene hurried inside and seized a fireplace poker, ready to strike the soldier squarely in the back of the skull. But then she saw the rope of many towels tied together and crossing the span from the bedpost to the window.
The fireplace poker clanged against the floor. “She’s hanged herself.” Emeriene’s heart leapt to her throat. “What have I done?” She ran to the window. “No,” she whispered.
Ryllion joined her at the window, gazing into the darkening gloom. “She hasn’t,” he scoffed. “She just climbed out the window.”
The swaying strand below ended a fair distance from the ground. Emeriene turned away, leaned against the sill, and noticed that Cyndere’s woodscloak and the oceandragon whistle were missing from their hooks. She fought to regain her breath. “She’s not dead,” she whispered. “She’s not dead.”
“No. But the rope stops beside the window that opens…to the kitchen.” Ryllion glanced about the courtyard. “Didn’t you tell me to keep Cyndere out of the kitchen?”
Emeriene bowed her head. “She planned this.” As tears fell to the floor, she laughed. “She’s fooled us all. There is no stopping her.”
“Why didn’t she just take the stairs?”
The answer was so plain to Emeriene that she clutched at her stomach. “She…she did not want to risk being seen.” But that was not it.
“What are you hiding?” Ryllion growled as if he had only just noticed her.
“Why are you speaking so harshly? Cyndere’s my problem, not yours. I’m responsible for her.”
“You forget. I was responsible for Deuneroi. If the heiress disappears while I’m here, who knows what they’ll think? They’ll never let me come back to Bel Amica.”
She went back to the window and tried to untie the towels that were bound together. She worried at the first knot, which had tightened from the weight that strained it. “She asked me to trust her.” She clawed at the knot. It would not come loose. “And she…she trusted me. Once.”
Ryllion seized her wrists, pried open her grip, and pushed her away. She spun around, catching herself against the wall, smudging one of Cyndere’s sketches.
He took the towel, cut through it with one clean swipe of Deuneroi’s dagger. He held out the slashed end to Emeriene. His eyes were fiery red in the midst of deep red burns.
Begrudgingly she accepted the strand. Her gaze strayed toward the fireplace, to the lonely half of the scarf that Ryllion had given to Cyndere. The other half was missing. Emeriene let go of the cord. Its falling weight drew the end to the window, and it disappeared over the edge. She walked to the window, peered over the sill. It lay in a meandering line, ending suddenly, broken and frayed.
“The heiress is delusional,” Ryllion ranted. “Can you imagine being so crazy that you’d climb out a window to run away when you know you’ll get caught?”
“Imagine?” she whispered. “I can remember.”
“You wouldn’t behave this way for your Cesylle, would you?”
“Oh no,” she laughed. “Not for him.” She looked to the woods, where the stark line against the dusking sky blurred. “But for someone.” She lifted the bowl of oil with its dancing wick and blew out the flame. Then she drew the heavy curtain across the window.
“Who is it?” Ryllion seized her by the arm, and the oil bowl fell, splashing across the floor. “Who’s making her behave like this?”
Emeriene struggled to wrest her arm from Ryllion, frightened at his fierce grip. “It’s her compass, Ryllion. Isn’t that what you called it? Except that she and Deuneroi shared a compass, one that works differently than ours. She’s being called out.”
“And where does that lead her?”
“I don’t know.” Emeriene smiled through tears. “I don’t understand, and I don’t have to. Not today. I choose to trust her.”
She moved toward the door, but Pretor Xa pushed his way through the sisterlies and stepped in to block her way. He cast a questioning smile to Ryllion.
“Back to the kitchen!” Ryllion shouted. “I think Cyndere’s up to something. Kramm those old Bel Amican kings… There’s probably a secret room or a passage she knows.”
The Seer stared daggers through Emeriene. Then he turned, his gaze scouring the walls for clues. He stopped in front of a particular sketch, as if he recognized the likeness. “She’s in the woods,” he hissed.
Emeriene stepped between him and the drawing.
“In the woods?” Ryllion ran to the window and pushed back the curtain. “Why? And how did she get out?” He turned to Emeriene. “Is she so determined to relive old times with Deuneroi?”
“It’s harmless, really,” Emeriene said, desperate. “She’ll be back anytime. She only meant to light up a burial tree and raise her last wishes to the ghosts.”
“No,” said the Seer. “There’s something else out there. Prepare riders, Ryllion. The heiress is in danger.”
“If we lose her too,” Ryllion shouted at Emeriene, “it won’t be my fault. Not this time.”
Compelled by new courage, Emeriene limped to the fireplace poker and thrust it into the flames. “Out! Out, both of you!”
They did not stay to test her resolve. The Seer slammed the door, shutting her in.
Emeriene walked back to the wall, to the illustrated stones. “Tell me they’re wrong,” she whispered. “Tell me he’s not dangerous, Cyn.”
The heiress had sketched intricate details into the silhouette. Dark, sad eyes stared back at Emeriene from a face framed by a bristling mane.
She scowled. “My secret stranger…he was much better looking.”
21
CEREMONY OF SACRIFICE
Our dear old protector.” Emeriene stood beside the high-backed, decorative chair where Cyndere sulked, and she reached behind it to touch Bauris’s arm. “It’s so good to be back here with you again. Even though times are different now.”
Under a dimming sky of scattered clouds, an assembly of soldiers, sisterlies, and staff had gathered with Cyndere on the towerhouse rooftop. While they turned their attention to the tower, which stood illuminated in the rays of a cold sunset, Cyndere’s gaze remained downcast. On this night of solemn ceremony, she had invited Bauris to stand at her right hand and Emeriene at her left. Despite the honor of such a request, Cyndere knew that Bauris accepted only out of a sense of duty. He would have preferred, as Tilianpurth’s senior officer, the privilege of participating in the ceremony on the top of the tower. She knew that he wished to stand beside Ryllion and sharpen the ceremonial blade. But she needed someone close at hand whose love for her surpassed mere formality, someone who would respond predictably to the charade she was about to perform.
Emeriene, meanwhile, had reluctantly accepted, making noise about an earlier invitation from Ryllion to sit at the front of the assembly.
“I remember,” Bauris was saying. “You ladies were trouble back then.”
“Oh, we’re still prone to the same troubles and rebellions,” Emeriene remarked, and Cyndere did not miss the note of bitterness at the end of the line.
“Remember the stories my brother always asked you to tell out there?”
“The legend of Inius Throan,” Bauris nodded. “Partayn loved to hear how Tammos Raak freed the children from captivity beyond the Forbidding Wall.”
Emeriene scowled. “I used to have nightmares about the curses that bound those people in the north. I still sometimes get a chill, thinking about those phantoms in your stories, the figures that creep down from the mountains. Snatchers, you called them. Northchildren.”
“Such a terrible thought, captivity,” Cyndere murmured. “Out here we’re so free.”
“What’s that?” Bauris asked.
“Emeriene doesn’t like the forest anymore,” she said, and she drew her arm across her brow. “Is it very warm tonight?” To escape the cruel grip of this pageant, she would have to make a scene.
Emeriene watched the tower, anxious. “No, I didn’t say that I don’t like the forest. I only said that the woods have become dangerous. Everybody knows that. I’m fond of memories too, my lady. Perhaps you remember that you used to treat me as a faithful friend.”
“I’m surrounded by faithful friends,” said Cyndere. “So faithful, they ignore my desires and decide what’s best for me. They place guards at every door so I cannot walk where I please. Like last night…”
The guard’s long, grey mustache did not conceal his deepening frown. “You do still bicker like arrogant girls. I remember those days. You’d argue and compete to win Partayn’s attention or mine. Nothing’s changed.” He glanced at the eager audience. “He was always more interested in music than games. I remember the day he blew those first seven notes on a shiny new hewson-pipe. It was like he’d been waiting to play them. He took hold of that line and played it over and over. Haunting, really. I wake up thinking of that little song.”
Emeriene and Cyndere were stricken silent, sobered.
“Now, pay attention. This is going to be exciting. For the good of our house, Ryllion’s going to make his appeal to the moon-spirits and sacrifice a beastman. How I wish he’d let me take the first shot. I’ve never yet fought one, you know.”
“Here’s a tip,” snapped Cyndere. “Ryllion’s decided to post a guard in the corridor beside the kitchen. Perhaps he suspects the beastman will raid the cupboards. You should look into it.”
She let her hands drift into the folds of her gown where she had concealed a bottle of pepperdust, taken from her midday meal. “It’s the cold,” she said. “I shouldn’t be out here at twilight. I’ll catch a plague.”
“You’re as safe as the rest of us. We’re all here, Cyndere. Everyone in Tilianpurth, from Bauris to the greenest of the stablehands.” Emeriene, furious, strode to the front of the assembly.
I’m depending on that, she thought.
The night before, she had learned the extent of the rift between her and her devoted sisterly when she tiptoed down the stairs and discovered a guard lurking in the kitchen. She had to find a chance to slip past him and get back out to the forest in case Jordam returned. It might be her only chance to put Deuneroi’s plan into action. It was what she had left to do. Giving that up, she would be trapped in the path leading to her mother’s throne and the Seers’ constant surveillance.
Pretor Xa leaned over the battlement atop the tower, gazing down like a predatory bird. Magisterial, he waited until the gathering quieted in a reverent hush. On either side of him at the corners of the tower’s crown, torches flared orange against the grey. Beneath a dark ceremonial headdress, his chalk white face looked all the more skullish. He seemed absorbed in thought. He raised his hands, and the people trembled, for it was as if he had choreographed the skies himself—the green crescent moon emerged from behind a cloud in the space of sky between his open hands.
In a soft voice that somehow reached each soldier, sisterly, and privileged servant on the rooftop and those gathered in the yard below—servants, stablehands, and soldiers—Pretor Xa led them back to the simple glories of House Cent Regus before its miserable decline. He brought them to those famous feasting tables. He recited poetry about their fields and farms.
Then he showed them the first signs of disintegration. The Cent Regus farmers, he explained, had failed to acknowledge their moon-spirits. They had not offered sacrifices, as the people of Bel Amica would this cold night. Fearful of violating their traditions, they had not pursued new dreams with passion. But the spirits, he reminded them, demand respect.
“The spirits are pleased when we follow our hearts. We must not be swayed by pity for those who made the wrong choices. We must not try to interfere. The Cent Regus have brought the spirits’ punishment upon themselves.”
Bauris blinked. It was a strange declaration. He was puzzling over it when something fell against his side.
Cyndere was slipping from her chair, clutching at her throat. “Help me,” she whispered. Her eyes were blood-red and streaming with tears. Her face flushed, beaded with sweat. “A fever.”
Bauris helped her lean back into the chair. She pressed her hand to her breast, and her breath came in gasps. Around her, the sisterlies in ceremony robes were wide-eyed in alarm, as distressed by the disruption of formalities as by the heiress. Emeriene, near the front of the assembly, had not noticed.
“Tonight we follow our hearts,” Pretor Xa declared, clearly enamored of his own eloquence. “We lift up a sacrifice to let the spirits know what we, in unison, desire. And when they see a picture of this, the spirits will put aside their own disputes and deign to grant us our request. They’ve taken land. Treasure. They’ve taken the heir to the throne, and they’ve taken Cyndere’s consort. For our sacrifice we offer up a beastman.”
Even though they knew it was coming, the people responded noisily, with anger and eagerness for justice.
“In some of us goodness grapples with corruption. But not the Cent Regus. Contrary to what some, in their compassion, would tell you, there are people bad to the marrow.”
“Watch, my lady,” Bauris whispered to Cyndere. In the dimming light, Pretor Xa loomed like a puppet in a shadow play. “You’ll feel better when you see the abomination receive his just—”
Cyndere dug her nails into his arm, and her crimson, crying eyes stared into his. “I can’t see.” She fell forward onto her knees. With a collective gasp, the sisterlies crowded around her, their dresses sliding across the floor with a rush.
“Take her inside,” Bauris growled through his teeth. “Quietly.”
The silhouette on the tower paused, then continued with even more drama, determined to hold the crowd’s attention. But he had all the help he needed, for Ryllion had taken the stage.
The stout and naked beastman facing Ryllion seemed a musclebound soldier in costume, with shaggy white hair like thick trousers on his legs, hooves black as boots, and a hooded snake’s head. His eyes glittered like polished black beads.
Sword in his right hand, Ryllion snapped the fingers of his left. No one in the audience below would notice the signal. Nor would they witness the response—a tile on the rooftop lifted, and a guard thrust his head and arms out from beneath it and swiftly fired a tiny pin from an arrowcaster directly into the beastman’s thigh. The creature winced, hissing. His leg buckled. His forked tongue lashed. As Ryllion advanced, the archer dropped down, and the hatch closed over him.
The bolt’s poison would confuse the beastman for a while, but it would not finish him. Ryllion wanted the satisfaction of the kill. He was confident he could slay the creature in a fair and open fight, but this was not meant to be a contest. It was a ceremony, symbolic. There was too much at stake here to risk having anything go wrong.
He raised his sword, raised a cheer from the crowd. Then he sheathed it and drew a smaller, ornamental blade instead. Deuneroi’s dagger. The better for ceremony.
But as his hand closed around the blade, he hesitated, his gaze drawn to a glimmering figure on the edge of his vision.
In that instant the beastman hissed a harsh stream of viscous venom into Ryllion’s eyes. He threw his arm across his face, staggered sideways, and cried out. The beastman howled. Ryllion felt a blow to his chest from both of the beastman’s hard hind hooves. He was cast up, away, over the low south wall into open space.
For an instant he saw the green moon. The four torches framing the square where he had fought. The crowd on the rooftop, the assembly in the yard. Stars emerging from dusk blue. The long drop to the grassy yard below. And the ground rushing up to meet him.
Cyndere lay on her bed, her head sunk into pillows, biting her tongue while the pepperdust burnt. She felt as if she’d inhaled the whole bottle through her nose. She could only see blurred images of her sisterlies scurrying about.
One of them cast a cold, wet towel across her forehead and her eyes. Another clutched her hand and appealed to her moon-spirit, asking for healing and intervention. She heard another draw back the heavy curtains, felt the rush of cold night air, smelled candle smoke and oil—they were placing spirit bowls on the windowsill in hopes of drawing the spirits’ gaze.
She tried to ignore their chatter, gathering her strength and courage and thinking through her plan once more.
“What is in this incense bowl?” one of the sisterlies asked.
“Blue flowers. Her favorite incense.”
“Light it then.”
Cyndere felt her tension ease as she breathed in a cloud of calm, blue light. Her determination grew. She felt poised for a daring jump.
“Bring me a pile of clean towels,” she said, her voice scorched by the pepper. “Quickly. Then you must return to the ceremony at once. Moon-spirits…they’ll be troubled to find you absent.”
“But, my lady—”
“I need the towels to wrap myself in perfumes and drive away the plague. But first I’ll pray here. Beside the window.”
The sisterlies crowded together, frightened pearbellies with ruffled feathers. And then they scuttled from the room, drawing the door closed behind them.
Slowly the details of the room came into focus. Clean towels rested just inside the door. The basket of tetherwings, undisturbed, waited in the closet. The bag packed with strips of dried meat and fruit. The woodscloak. Everything she needed.
“It’s time, Deuneroi. This is it.”
Without thinking, she began to hum the seven notes of Partayn’s pipe song.
After a moment of silence, the beastman on the tower trilled a triumphant cry.
“Bauris.” Emeriene ran to him, her hands on her face. “Bauris, it’s killed Ryllion.” She looked about for Cyndere. “Where…where is she?”
Bauris stepped out from the row of terrified observers and unsheathed his sword. “Kill it! Somebody kill it!”
The riot of the distraught crowd echoed across the roof of the towerhouse. Further dismay rose in chorus from those in the yard below. Soldiers shouted frantic orders. And then at a sharp command, their arrows crowded the air, sharp tips catching the last rays of the setting winter sun and glittering like sparks before they rained down on the tower. The beastman dodged, darting about in his limited range. He strained at the end of his chain, trying to reach one of the torches mounted on the tower’s edge.
Emeriene turned away. Gasps of disappointment told her the shots had failed. She saw three guards break from their formation around the crowd and enter the tower for a quick ascent, hands on sword hilts.
They appeared at the top of the tower. One man held the base of a net. A man and a woman held corners and advanced.
Crouching, the beastman let them sweep it over him. Then he seized the net’s strong strands and pulled fast and hard, catching the guards by surprise. One stumbled backward against the wall. The other tried to let go, but his hand caught in a tangle. The beastman pulled and pulled, drawing the desperate guard in like an animal in a trap. Emeriene saw the guard raised up and thrown down. The beastman seized the guard’s sword.
Stunned onlookers watched the net thrashing. The beastman looked like a giant spider killing its prey in the middle of a web.
The soldier who held the base of the net released it and unsheathed his sword. But the beastman bounded toward him, dragging the net along, and cast the stolen sword forward, neatly pinning the soldier to the low wall of the rooftop.
The last remaining guard unharnessed her arrowcaster from its strap on her back and leveled it at the approaching monster. But a new roar tore the night. The crowd went silent.
A familiar silhouette stood against the moon. Ryllion. Dagger in hand, he advanced toward the beastman as if he had never been cast down.
“How?” Emeriene gasped. “How’d he get back up there?”
“Moon-spirits,” whispered Bauris, awe-struck. “His moon-spirit saved him. He’s alive. He’s alive!”
Like a predator defying others to come near, Ryllion turned upon the guardswoman with a searing command. She dropped to her knees. Then he advanced toward the net-tangled beastman.
Forked tongue flicking in and out, the creature fought with the net, trying to reach the edge and climb free. As he did, he backed away from the transformed man until he reached the extent of his chain.
Ryllion stopped, held his left arm straight, as if measuring some distance, and then cast Deuneroi’s dagger skyward like a spear.
The beastman watched it soar, reach the apex of its flight, turn, and plunge tip-first back down. The creature jumped from its path, and into Ryllion, who had anticipated the move. The soldier had lunged the moment he cast the blade, snatching two fallen arrows, one of which was now wedged deeply between the creature’s ribs.
Hissing, the beastman tried to spray venom at his attacker, but Ryllion drove the other arrow up to pin the creature’s mouth shut. Then he uprooted the first arrow, and air from the creature’s lungs whistled out through the puncture. Ryllion threw him down.
In that moment, as murmurs of amazement rippled through the crowd, Ryllion felt he could conquer anything. Anything. He snatched up his dagger and slashed at the air, wishing he had another beastman to fight. A strange fever had seized him, and he knew that if he chose to leap down from this great height into the crowd on the towerhouse roof, he could do so and laugh at their bewilderment. The wind moaned, and a torch at the edge of the tower fluttered in its current. He seized it from its hold and waved it back and forth in the sky as if to write his name there.
A cheer from the crowd on the towerhouse roof caused him to look down. Pretor Xa stood at the edge of the crowd staring up with that ever-present grin.
A chill ran through him, driving out the fever of his pride. He felt suddenly awkward, as if waking from a vivid dream to find himself standing on a stage. What was he doing here prancing around like some sort of conqueror? Bewilderment choked him, and he looked down at the fallen beastman. He remembered venom spraying his face, and he could still feel flesh burning around his eyes. He had taken a hard hit from those powerful hooves. He remembered the fall. But the impact—he could not recall landing in the yard. And then he was climbing, climbing up the tower in a blur of motion, as if some invisible line were raising him up through the air. Something had carried him, something within and yet beyond him.
His hands began to throb in their grip on the dagger’s hilt and the torch.
This had not been Ryllion’s plan. This was not what he had invited the people to witness. The sacred Ceremony of Sacrifice was meant to inspire Cyndere and the people of Bel Amica with a taste of justice. He had meant to quiet his own conscience. And above all, he had intended to lead his people in a unified plea to their moon-spirits, demonstrating a shared desire to vanquish the abominable Cent Regus and gain sovereignty over the Expanse.
Instead, here he was, laughing and savoring the uproar. Posturing like some brutish bear-tamer in a Bel Amican circus, he found himself waving as if to goad the onlookers to praise him.
He shifted his stance, pushing his arms back out to show refusal of the praise. He raised the torch again. “For Deuneroi!” he howled, anxious to steer the ceremony back to its proper course.
An awkward silence fell over the assembly. The torch flapped and licked at the air. A cloud passed in front of the moon.
One voice answered him. He recognized it. “For Deuneroi!” Emeriene was shouting. “And for Partayn!” The edge of anger in her voice told him that she was not merely echoing his tribute. She was glad. She was satisfied.
More sisterlies’ voices answered in chorus. And soon the crowd raised the two names—Cyndere’s husband and her brother—in a chant of remembrance.
While the chant ran on, Ryllion leaned back, arms spread wide, and stared into the face of the moon. Tears slid back from his eyes into his hair. “Was it you, Spirit?” he said. “Was it you that saved me? Did you send me the strength? I’m ready, Spirit.” He turned and gazed southward. “I’m ready to carry out the plan. To claim the vision that the Seers have shown me.”
“Sir,” said the swordswoman, backing away from him, “you should get down to the healers.”
“I’m not bleeding. Nothing’s broken.”
“Your eyes. They’re…they’re not right.”
Tilianpurth was full of mirrors, but there were none at the top of the tower. Ryllion raised the dagger and tried to discern his reflection in the blade, but the pale green moonlight was not bright enough to show him a clear image.
He did, however, notice his gloved hand where it gripped the hilt. He turned his gaze to the hand that held the torch, and he saw the same alarming change. His hands had grown. His battle gloves were splitting at the seams. “What is happening?” he whispered, dropping the dagger. He hid his hand behind his back and looked to the swordswoman, trembling.
“Sir?” Bauris had arrived on the top of the tower. But he stopped short when he saw Ryllion’s face and turned away.
“The heiress.” Ryllion cleared his throat, desperate to conceal his confusion. “Is the heiress pleased?”
“Sir, the heiress fell ill. She had to leave the ceremony.”
“What?” Ryllion spun around to scan the towerhouse rooftop. “Cyndere wasn’t there? She didn’t see the sacrifice?” His grip tightened around the torch. “The spirits will be offended. We were to stand together.” He reached out to steady himself, and Bauris rushed to his side.
But Ryllion pushed the soldier away, growling as that feverish zeal spread again and silenced his self-doubt. The surge had carried him up the wall of the tower in a rage, like a hound bounding along even ground in a hunt. Now it carried him forward again, and he brushed Bauris aside, snatching up Deuneroi’s dagger. “Let’s find out what’s really ailing the heiress.”
Emeriene pounded on the door of Cyndere’s chamber. She was shaking, terrified of all she had seen and even more afraid of the way Ryllion’s feat had inspired her to cry out in exultation. The sisterlies crowded in around her, a worried flock of whispering robes, until she scattered them with a curse.
“There’s no answer,” she said. “Who’s in there with her?”
“No one, Sisterly,” said one timid attendant. “The heiress commanded us to return to the ceremony.”
“She gave you orders? She’s in there alone?” Emeriene turned and pressed her forehead against the door. “Idiots! She was pretending. She’s angry with me for spoiling her midnight adventures.” Emeriene struck the door with both fists. “Cyndere! Heiress! My lady! Forgive me. I’ll call off the guards. You can do as you please. Run away. Mope around in the woods all night. I won’t get in your way.”
No voice, no footstep—there was nothing beyond the door.
Emeriene felt a twinge of fear. “Not again.” In her mind she was back at the doorway of Cyndere’s chamber in Bel Amica, discovering the heiress crumpled in a pool of blood with Deuneroi’s dagger in her hand. She had come in time that day.
“I think,” she said with new urgency, “that we have to open this door.”
“I’ll do that,” snarled a monstrous voice. “Get out of the way.”
Ryllion walked toward Cyndere’s door as if it were wide open. He did not stop. Emeriene gasped when she saw his face, the dark scars around his eyes. She leapt aside with a cry. He kicked the door so mightily that it ripped off its hinges, skidded into the room, and fell flat with a crash.
The candle flames in Cyndere’s chamber leaned away from Ryllion. A faint hint of the blue perfume swirled in the air around them and faded.
“Ryllion!” Emeriene hurried inside and seized a fireplace poker, ready to strike the soldier squarely in the back of the skull. But then she saw the rope of many towels tied together and crossing the span from the bedpost to the window.
The fireplace poker clanged against the floor. “She’s hanged herself.” Emeriene’s heart leapt to her throat. “What have I done?” She ran to the window. “No,” she whispered.
Ryllion joined her at the window, gazing into the darkening gloom. “She hasn’t,” he scoffed. “She just climbed out the window.”
The swaying strand below ended a fair distance from the ground. Emeriene turned away, leaned against the sill, and noticed that Cyndere’s woodscloak and the oceandragon whistle were missing from their hooks. She fought to regain her breath. “She’s not dead,” she whispered. “She’s not dead.”
“No. But the rope stops beside the window that opens…to the kitchen.” Ryllion glanced about the courtyard. “Didn’t you tell me to keep Cyndere out of the kitchen?”
Emeriene bowed her head. “She planned this.” As tears fell to the floor, she laughed. “She’s fooled us all. There is no stopping her.”
“Why didn’t she just take the stairs?”
The answer was so plain to Emeriene that she clutched at her stomach. “She…she did not want to risk being seen.” But that was not it.
“What are you hiding?” Ryllion growled as if he had only just noticed her.
“Why are you speaking so harshly? Cyndere’s my problem, not yours. I’m responsible for her.”
“You forget. I was responsible for Deuneroi. If the heiress disappears while I’m here, who knows what they’ll think? They’ll never let me come back to Bel Amica.”
She went back to the window and tried to untie the towels that were bound together. She worried at the first knot, which had tightened from the weight that strained it. “She asked me to trust her.” She clawed at the knot. It would not come loose. “And she…she trusted me. Once.”
Ryllion seized her wrists, pried open her grip, and pushed her away. She spun around, catching herself against the wall, smudging one of Cyndere’s sketches.
He took the towel, cut through it with one clean swipe of Deuneroi’s dagger. He held out the slashed end to Emeriene. His eyes were fiery red in the midst of deep red burns.
Begrudgingly she accepted the strand. Her gaze strayed toward the fireplace, to the lonely half of the scarf that Ryllion had given to Cyndere. The other half was missing. Emeriene let go of the cord. Its falling weight drew the end to the window, and it disappeared over the edge. She walked to the window, peered over the sill. It lay in a meandering line, ending suddenly, broken and frayed.
“The heiress is delusional,” Ryllion ranted. “Can you imagine being so crazy that you’d climb out a window to run away when you know you’ll get caught?”
“Imagine?” she whispered. “I can remember.”
“You wouldn’t behave this way for your Cesylle, would you?”
“Oh no,” she laughed. “Not for him.” She looked to the woods, where the stark line against the dusking sky blurred. “But for someone.” She lifted the bowl of oil with its dancing wick and blew out the flame. Then she drew the heavy curtain across the window.
“Who is it?” Ryllion seized her by the arm, and the oil bowl fell, splashing across the floor. “Who’s making her behave like this?”
Emeriene struggled to wrest her arm from Ryllion, frightened at his fierce grip. “It’s her compass, Ryllion. Isn’t that what you called it? Except that she and Deuneroi shared a compass, one that works differently than ours. She’s being called out.”
“And where does that lead her?”
“I don’t know.” Emeriene smiled through tears. “I don’t understand, and I don’t have to. Not today. I choose to trust her.”
She moved toward the door, but Pretor Xa pushed his way through the sisterlies and stepped in to block her way. He cast a questioning smile to Ryllion.
“Back to the kitchen!” Ryllion shouted. “I think Cyndere’s up to something. Kramm those old Bel Amican kings… There’s probably a secret room or a passage she knows.”
The Seer stared daggers through Emeriene. Then he turned, his gaze scouring the walls for clues. He stopped in front of a particular sketch, as if he recognized the likeness. “She’s in the woods,” he hissed.
Emeriene stepped between him and the drawing.
“In the woods?” Ryllion ran to the window and pushed back the curtain. “Why? And how did she get out?” He turned to Emeriene. “Is she so determined to relive old times with Deuneroi?”
“It’s harmless, really,” Emeriene said, desperate. “She’ll be back anytime. She only meant to light up a burial tree and raise her last wishes to the ghosts.”
“No,” said the Seer. “There’s something else out there. Prepare riders, Ryllion. The heiress is in danger.”
“If we lose her too,” Ryllion shouted at Emeriene, “it won’t be my fault. Not this time.”
Compelled by new courage, Emeriene limped to the fireplace poker and thrust it into the flames. “Out! Out, both of you!”
They did not stay to test her resolve. The Seer slammed the door, shutting her in.
Emeriene walked back to the wall, to the illustrated stones. “Tell me they’re wrong,” she whispered. “Tell me he’s not dangerous, Cyn.”
The heiress had sketched intricate details into the silhouette. Dark, sad eyes stared back at Emeriene from a face framed by a bristling mane.
She scowled. “My secret stranger…he was much better looking.”
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