“My escort is indeed magicked-you would have not admitted me otherwise-but if we intended violence,” she said, “we’d have made those intentions clear without introduction and without losing the advantage of surprise.” Around them, he felt the tension crackling like electricity in a storm. The woman smiled. “May I have audience?” she asked again.
Jin Li Tam frowned. “You already have it.”
The woman who shared the young queen’s name bowed. “Thank you, Great Mother.” She looked to the others and her voice rose. “The salvation of a people is difficult and painful work. Kinship must be healed. Blood must be let. Sacrifice must be made.” As she spoke, Petronus watched her eyes travel the room, settling last upon Meirov of Pylos. The rage upon Meirov’s face gave him pause, and for a moment he thought she might lunge forward to attack the woman with bare hands. Of course, it would be her death sentence if she did. He remembered the strength and ferocity of just one blood skirmisher and knew this so-called queen must have dozens of them with her and perhaps a hundred more nearby. She would not have walked into a kin-clave otherwise.
The woman continued. “You believe that you gather here upon the plains of our handiwork to judge the Last Son of P’Andro Whym and to hear my sister’s plea for help. But this is not true. You are here-called and set apart-to bear witness to the grace and mercy of House Y’Zir and the Crimson Empress whose advent is nearly upon us.”
Jin Li Tam’s eyes narrowed. “You speak in riddles.”
“No,” the woman said firmly, “I speak of prophecy and destiny for those who have ears to hear. She raised her voice: “ ‘And it shall come to pass that the city of P’Andro Whym shall become a pyre and in the shadow of that pyre, a child of great promise shall be born to make ready all people for the advent of the Crimson Empress and the Homecoming of House Y’Zir.’ ”
The words were unfamiliar to Petronus, but they had the ring of age about them. And they had a similar tone and cadence to other words he’d heard not so long ago. Thus shall the sins of P’Andro Whym be visited upon his children.
The woman continued, and her smile warmed when she fixed her eyes upon Petronus. “Last Son,” she said, “you know what I speak of. You chose this time and place for a reckoning you have felt calling you for some time now. Is this not true?”
Yes. He found himself nodding. “I have felt it,” he said in a quiet voice that only he and Esarov could hear. Some Franci corner of him spun the Rufello ciphers on this lock, but a deeper voice pulled at his will like a tide. How can she know this?
Petronus glanced around the tent to see what others were doing. Surprise and confusion still dominated most faces. Jin Li Tam watched carefully, her eyes moving from the woman who called herself Winteria, to the guards positioned at various points around the tent. He saw the briefest flash of fingers and hands moving to give orders. The Marsh girl Winters sat still, her eyes wide and her mouth open-it was obvious to Petronus that she was as surprised as anyone by this sudden turn of events, but the resemblance between them was unsettling. Last, he caught Ignatio’s eye and saw him lean forward to whisper something into Erlund’s ear. When the spymaster leaned back, his eyes locked with Petronus’s and he understood the smile some twenty days earlier in the council chambers on the Delta. He is a part of this.
The Machtvolk Queen walked to Petronus’s table, trailing her fingers across the surface of it as she strolled past. He caught the heavy scent of blood and mud and ash from her and from her invisible escort. “The time for kin-clave is past,” she said, “and the time of kin-healing is upon us all.”
Even as she said it, there arose a clamor beyond the tent. It was as if a thousand voices gathered just outside, raising up in a shout all at once, and then a frightened-looking girl entered the tent, a baby clutched in her arms. Behind her, an old man followed with upraised hands, singing loudly in an ecstatic burst of glossolalia. Around them, snow flurried as magicked skirmishers swept into the tent around them, forming an unseen wall between the audience and the infant.
Erlund’s general-Lysias, Petronus remembered-plunged forward and called out a name that was lost in the gasps and cries that filled the tent. Invisible hands pressed him back. And the loudest cry sounded from the front of the room, where Jin Li Tam clung to the podium with ice in her eyes and a snarl upon her lips. “Release my child,” she said, “and I will spare your life.”
The Machtvolk Queen laughed, and Petronus felt the chill of it along his spine. “You are in no position to command me in this matter, Great Mother. Your boy’s life lies in the hands of the Last Son of P’Andro Whym.”
Jin Li Tam cleared the platform in one leap, and Petronus watched as a wall of force caught her up and held her, invisible hands grasping at her arms and legs as she bucked and twisted. Petronus heard a disembodied voice. “Don’t struggle, Great Mother. We hold you for your own good.”
The girl holding Jakob sobbed now and clutched at him as the old man stretched out his hands to take him from her. Jin Li Tam shrieked her rage then, and when soldiers suddenly surged forward, unseen wind knocked them back and down. Then, Jakob rose up in the prophet’s arms for all in the room to see. “Behold,” the old man said, “the Child of Promise.”
It was Petronus’s first close look at the child. He was gray and smaller than he should be, his eyes squeezed shut against the light. He hung motionless in the old man’s hands, his head rolling to the side.
The older Winteria looked to Petronus and drew a knife and a ring from a pocket beneath her armor. He looked at them and blinked. How did she come by those?
He’d not seen either since that day he’d dropped them onto the floor of the tent and left to wash Sethbert’s blood from his hands.
“You know these, then?”
He nodded. “I do.”
She placed the ring upon the table. “I’ve told you that the child’s life is in your hands. Do you believe me?”
He studied the line of her jaw, measured the certainty in her eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I believe you.”
“Rise, then, Last Son, take up your ring and face your reckoning.”
He stood, his eyes never leaving the infant, and took up the ring. It was still brown with dried blood that he felt peeling away as he shoved it onto his finger.
He walked around the table to stand before her. She smiled at him. “You called this council of kin-clave for the matter of your guilt in the death of Sethbert as King of Windwir and Holy See of the Androfrancine Order. I charge you with more than this, Petronus, Last Son of P’Andro Whym. I charge you with two thousand years of blasphemy and bullying. I charge you with regicide and deicide.” She paused and looked out over the others in the room. “I charge you with home-stealing and light-hoarding.”
He looked to the baby and then back to the woman. “Who are you to make these charges?”
“I am the Bond-Servant of House Y’Zir, sent to prepare for the advent of the Crimson Empress. I am the Machtvolk Queen Winteria bat Mardic, the Home-Taker.”
“I do not recognize your authority in this matter,” he said, nodding toward Winters. “Winteria bat Mardic is the ascended queen of the Marshfolk.”
“You do not have to. My authority is in this moment and this knife.” She smiled. “And things are not as they seem. My little sister and I may share a name, but make no mistake that our father’s throne is mine by right of birth.”
He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Jin Li Tam’s hands were moving. Do not play into her hand, she said in the Whymer subverbal. There must be another way.
He nodded so that she would know he understood her message, but he had no intention of changing course now. She held the knife in the same way he had, hidden beneath his robes, while he waited for the right moment. This is my reckoning, he thought.