“You are a queen,” Jin Li Tam had told her, her voice heavy with weariness from her fight the day before. “It calls for difficult decisions. And often,” she said, “these choices are not between good and bad but good and best.”
Those words still resonated with her the next morning as she wandered the camp. She’d finally relinquished her weapons and armor-there’d been no need for them here. She had no army here to bolster with such accouterments and she knew of a certainty that she could not face down one of these magicked skirmishers in the way that Jin Li Tam had. Instead, she wore the simple breeches, woolen shirt and fur jacket of a Marsh boy and she walked with her hands buried in her pockets and her breath fogging the cold air. Mud sucked at her sturdy boots as she went.
Tents were coming down about the camp, and she suspected the same happened among the armies to the south. They would leave the bulk of their forces behind, still locked in a Queen’s War stalemate, though she wasn’t certain why at this point. The Wandering Army had not yet successfully held the line, and the armies of Pylos and Turam had yet to press farther north, though she suspected it could happen any day. It was an in effective policing, more an image of action than any real staying force. The sheer power of blood magicks combined with the skirmishers’ willingness to fight until they were dead made for an untenable situation for all involved.
Especially me. Something was happening among her people-something that had grown up beneath their noses-and she did not know what to do about it. She simply felt some pressing need to be near them, to offer them some kind of assurance and be the leader that she was intended to be.
“Lady Winters?” The voice rose up above the clamor of the soldiers who bustled about rolling tents and packing saddlebags.
She turned and saw a familiar Gypsy Scout approaching. “Yes?”
“Our scout company from the north is in audience with Lady Tam; they’ve brought one of your men with them.” His face was blank, and there was a secret in his eyes that made her stomach lurch. “She requests your presence.” But his tone did not say request-it said requires.
Turning, Winters let the young scout lead her back to the tent where she’d spent so much time of late. Her time with the women there and little Jakob had been the only light in these dark times. With Neb vanished now from her dreams, they were filled only with blood and blades and pink scars upon pale breasts. But little Jakob, despite his obvious illness, was bright as the full moon in this darkness. And watching Jin Li Tam with him and then with her soldiers was an odd juxtaposition-a quiet canticle buried within a greater song.
She kept up with the scout and followed him to the tent. Then, she slipped inside as he held the flap for her. A somber company awaited her, and seated in the center of the room, Seamus sat trembling, his cheeks white from tears and his face bruised and battered. His clothing hung from him in bloody shreds. When he saw her, he looked away, and she raced to him to kneel and take his hand in hers. “Seamus, what’s happened to you?”
Jin Li Tam sat to the side. Lynnae and the River Woman were nowhere to be seen, but a small group of tattered and dirty scouts huddled near the heating stove.
Seamus bit his lip. “The Twelve are no more,” he said. “I’m all that’s left.”
Winters exhaled, her stomach suddenly clenching. “How is that possible? Just this morning, I received word from you that you were moving on to Kinsmen’s Rest to search for the mark there.”
Jin Li Tam’s voice behind her was gentle but firm. “Tell Queen Winteria what you told me, Captain.”
“He could not have sent word,” the officer said. “We found an encampment and took him from a cage within it. I lost six men getting him out, but I recognized him from the Summer Palace and couldn’t leave him.” Winters looked to him and saw the hardness in his eyes. “Things are awry in the Marshlands.”
Winters felt heat in her face as her eyebrows furrowed. “But what of the army, Seamus? You rode with the army. what happened?”
“Broken,” he said. “Scattered or dead by now, those that didn’t surrender and take the mark.”
She blinked at the news. The Marsher army was feared throughout the Named Lands. They did not surrender, certainly not to their own. How was this possible? Suddenly, his words sank in. She asked the question, but she knew what he meant and it chilled her. “Take the mark?”
Sobbing, he pushed aside his shirt and showed her the fresh cutting. “Oh my queen,” Seamus said, “I have failed you and the memory of your father.”
The sight of the broken old man and his tears crushed her, and she felt the water in her own eyes. She willed her lower lip not to quiver. “How did this happen, Seamus?”
He hung his head, and when he spoke, his voice was garbled. “We divided the army to search the villages. Each of the Twelve took a contingent. I took my men east to Valkry’s Rest to search the villages there. We found a hidden mountain shrine. Gaerrik and his contingent found another near Aensil’s Hope. We started searching our people for the mark.” He looked up, his eyes red. “Not everyone takes it by the knife. Some merely paint it on. Particularly those in positions that might require a more secret discipleship.”
She released her held breath. “How many?”
“Too many. There has been betrayal within the Council of Twelve. My men and I were ambushed in the night, both from within and without. Several of the council members were captured and given the option of taking the mark or laying down our lives. I do not know which were working against us, but I know our birds were intercepted and tampered with.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Where are the others, Seamus?”
Seamus hung his head again and said nothing. She watched the mucous and tears trail down into his beard.
Finally, the Scout Captain spoke up. “The others refused the mark and were executed.” There was bitterness in his voice, Winters realized, but it was not the bitterness of judgment.
I’m losing my people. She felt the weight of that truth and wrestled with tears that threatened to shame her. She looked to Jin Li Tam. “I am needed at home. I cannot go with you to Windwir.”
“Certainly you must do what you feel is best,” the Gypsy Queen said carefully, but Jin Li Tam’s hands moved even as her mouth did. Reconsider this choice; you could petition for kin-clave. The Marshlands are in other hands than yours, and you will need help to take them back.
Winters nodded, but a part of her wondered if her lands could be taken back. “I will consider it.” She looked to the captain herself now. “What else can you tell me?”
“There is an old man who fancies himself a prophet. He is preaching a new gospel openly now, and people are listening.” She saw distaste on the officer’s face. “He points to scriptures that predicted the fall of Windwir-to the very day-and claims it heralds the establishment of an empress.”
Yes, she remembered Ezra’s words from her bathing cavern. The Crimson Empress. A new gospel. The memory of it ran cold fingers over her skin. The Marshfolk had no gospel but the Book of Dreaming Kings with its promise of Home and restitution for the wrongs done them in the land of sojourn, but he’d told her a new one arose. “What scriptures did he reference?”
The captain shook his head. “I don’t know what they were called. The old man recited from memory, but it’s nothing I’ve heard before. Judging from your people’s response, they’d not heard it before, either.” His brow furrowed as he pulled words from memory. “ ‘And it shall come to pass at the end of days that a wind of blood shall rise for cleansing and cold iron blades shall rise for pruning.. ’ ”