The captain is older than he was when the High King lived. His dark eyes are webbed by the marks of age and he has fewer teeth. His black hair is white. He nods, but does not turn away. “She has already been called to the gallows, Majesty.”
“Then you should hurry,” his daughter says. Her voice carries a joyless mirth that he recognizes as once he recognized her other imitations of him. The captain hurries, his footsteps echoing. The night before, she looks up at the cunning man and says, “He isn’t here. I need him.”
“If you needed him,” the cunning man says, “he would rise. If he is not risen, then this is not the need.”
“I don’t know anything about war. I don’t know what he would do.”
“Neither did he,” the cunning man says. “Not at the first.”
The captain reaches the gallows and leads the prisoner away. The crows look down in disappointment not to have fresh eyes to peck or the taste of a woman’s tongue.
“What would he have done?” the cunning man says, sucking at his teeth. He shrugs. “Ridden with blade in hand to the battle and enforced his will over any who stood in his way.”
“I can’t do that,” she says. It is the whine of a child and also the sober assessment of a woman grown.
“Then the question is not what he would do, but what you shall.”
The prisoner kneels before the throne. Her hair is the same auburn as Abend of Holt’s. The line of her jaw is as his. The daughter of the rebel and the daughter of the unifier face each other, and the air between them holds its breath.
“You are hostage to King Holt’s good behavior,” the queen says. “Unfortunately your father’s behavior leaves a great deal to be desired.” The night before, in the cunning man’s dark room, she scowls, her mind searching for something. If he is not risen, it is because this is not the need. The High King’s hand relaxes from around Justice’s hilt.
“Yes, Majesty,” the hostage says.
“He has sentenced you to death by his actions. Your life is mine.”
“I understand,” she breathes.
“Then take your life to Stonewell in my name. You will write a single letter to your father asking his surrender in return for what amnesty I see fit to grant. And inform him that if he refuses, you will become Queen of Stonewell, and all lands of Holt shall devolve to you and your husband upon his death. I will inform King Merrian of Stonewell likewise. Then we shall see if he can’t find the men to break this siege.”
No, the High King thinks. Stonewell’s recalcitrance cannot be rewarded. If he has not come out in force to put down the rebellion, he must be punished. Justice demands loyalty, but the hostage bows her head.
“Thank you, my queen.”
“I’m sorry,” his daughter says. Her voice is petulant, reluctant, and still she puts her hand on the hostage girl’s shoulder. The girl begins to weep again.
It is a mistake, and the echoes of it will haunt her. He is certain of it, but he can dream that he is wrong. And so he imagines that the war fades, and that the deaths of the soldiers and the wounding of the land become something else. Where the bloodshed was worst, the bodies of the fallen feed the brightest grass. The High King feels the growth as if it were rising from within him, a great, warm exhalation that does not stop. For a time, he is the land, and he is rich and fruitful. His own body, sealed in stone, does not fade. A mouse comes and makes its home in the crook of his arm. It lives its full span, giving birth to its young who scatter through the field and dying beside him, its thin bones against his still pale but eternal flesh.
Songs are sung of him, and then songs are sung of the songs, changing every time until the words are like words written in dreams. The High King who brought the land together, who is the land, whose blood still flows in the veins of the queen and the water of the rivers. There is awe in the songs and reverence. And some smut as well. And some anger. He hears them all, seeing the events they recount as if they were true. He sees himself battling with Lord Souther, blade to blade, and remembers finding Souther’s body after the battle, crushed under his fallen horse. The truth and the exaggeration and the lies pour together, becoming something larger, richer, and true in ways that know nothing of fact.
He is not dead but dreaming, they sing, and when the need comes, he shall rise.
The captain of his guard dies from an autumn fever. King Erald of Leftbridge dies, and his son Cormin takes his throne. The cunning man does not die but passes into a twilight that leads him out of the world. The High King hears him laughing as he goes, and knows that the old man will never be seen again by mortal eyes. There is cruelty in the sound as much as sorrow. The High King dreams soft, pleasant dreams, until they turn to nightmares.
A ray of warm sunlight heats the rich-smelling earth. Green wheat nods in the soft breeze. The distant buzz of an insect’s wing, and the High King feels shrill horror run through him. He tries to scream. The insect is no larger than the head of a pin. Its black carapace is split, its wings beating so quickly they cannot be seen. Its mouth is a sharpness. He hears it land on a stalk of wheat with a boom like great stones hurled against a castle wall. The inhuman mouth touches the soft, green flesh. In the fields, the farmers toil. In the cities, the merchants and traders make their negotiations. Only the dreaming king knows that it is too late, and his cry cannot be heard.
The blight spreads like ink spilled upon a map. The sun sets upon rich fields, and rises to find them blackened and stinking. Throughout the land, the harvest fails. It has happened before. Starving springs have come and passed, but the next year is the same. Mothers make nettle tea for their babies because there is nothing else to drink. Boney cattle are slaughtered in their fields rather than let them suffer as their keepers do. Desperation smells like an empty pot left too long over the fire. He feels it in his breast, profound and sorrowful. Another blighted year, and the kingdoms will be peopled by bones. War is the only hope. A war not of justice, but necessity. A single dusty tear tracks from his closed eye. It is terrible, but it is needed. If it were only him, he might starve and die proud, but it is his daughter and the land she inherited from him. The time of need has come upon them, and he dreams with a bleak certainty that this is his waking hour.
His dreams are of his daughter, her face gaunt, standing before her lords. Their condition fills him with dread. The great kings are shades of themselves, withered by hunger and by years. Only King Cormin of Leftbridge and Queen Sarya of Stonewall and Holt who have never seen battle are hale enough to lead an army. His peace has lasted too long. There are no war leaders left but him. The irony is bitter.
The banner of the enemy waves in the winter sun. Crimson and gold with a black star in its center. He does not know it. He sees the enemy, tall men—if they are men—with massive black eyes and ink worked into their skins. Their cheeks are too wide, their lips too thin. Their mouths are purple-black. And their teeth as sharp as a hound’s. They stand in the throne room, proud and stern. Cruel horns rise from the temples of their leader, and he wears armor of silk layered upon silk layered upon silk, strong enough to stop an arrow or a sword. His voice is human, his inflections strange, musical, and unsettling. With the logic of dreams, the High King knows these are hraki, but he does not know what the word means.
Their leader shakes his horned head, as if in bewilderment at the High Queen’s words. Her kings stand arrayed about the Silver Throne, starving but stern.
“Two more years, according to the cunning men,” his daughter says. Her face is thicker than it was, no longer a girl’s but a woman’s. Handsome and strong. She holds the scepter and whip with a forgetfulness born of long company. They are as much extensions of her body as a swordsman’s blade. “After that, our fields will be as rich as they were before. Our strength will return. But first we must weather those years. It will mean fodder for our horses and cattle. Grain for our people. Seed for our fields when the blight has run its course.”