She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to listen, for the very simple fear that if she did, her soul would return to oblivion.
But the voice wasn’t going to be denied by anything as simple as fear.
No, by the damned ones, it burred. You can hear me. You will hear me.
“Who are you?” She relented. “Please…”
“My name?” The voice gathered strength immediately, and she felt a hand press against the side of her face. It was very cold.
“It was Erren, I think. Erren. And who are you? You are familiar.”
She realized then that she had forgotten her own name.
“I don’t remember,” she said. “But I remember you. The queen’s assassin.”
“Yes,” the voice said triumphantly. “Yes, that’s me. And I know you now. Alis. Alis Berrye.” Something like a chuckle followed that. “By the saints. I missed you, didn’t know what you were. How did I miss you?”
Alis! I am Alis! she thought in desperate relief.
“I did not want to be found,” Alis said. “But I always feared that you would catch me. Indeed, I was terrified of you.”
The hand stroked against her neck.
“Coven-trained, yes.” The dead woman sighed. “But not by any proper coven of the Church, were you? Halaruni?”
“We call ourselves the Veren,” Alis answered.
“Ah, yes, of course,” Erren said. “Veren. The mark of the crescent moon. I know something of you. And now you are my queen’s protector.”
“I am, lady.”
“How did you accomplish this escape from death? Your heart was slowed to beating only once a day your breath stilled. Your blood stank of gallowswort, but now it is clean.”
“If he had not used gallowswort—if he had used lauvleth or mer-waurt or hemlock—I would be dead,” Alis replied.
“You might die, anyway,” Erren replied. “Even now you are very near. A thing as insubstantial as I cannot do much, but you are so very close to us, I think I might manage it…”
“Then she would have no one to aid her,” Alis said.
“Tell me quickly why you did not die. I know of no faneway, no shinecraft that will stop the work of gallowswort.”
“Our ways are different,” Alis said. “And the law of death has been broken. The markland between the quick and the dead is much wider than it was; the passage both ways less certain. Gallowswort is more sure than most poisons, because it acts not only on the body but also on the soul. There is a very old story in our order about a woman who let herself be taken by death and yet returned. It was the last time the law of death was broken, during the time of the Black Jester.
“I felt I might be able to accomplish the same thing, and knew the sacaums necessary to try. And I had no choice, really. The poison was already in me.” She paused. “You should not kill me, Sor Erren.”
“Does my queen understand the aim of your order?”
“My order is dead. All of them but me,” Alis replied. “I am no longer bound by their mission.”
“Then she doesn’t.”
“Of course not,” Alis said. “How could I tell her? She needs to trust me.”
“At this moment,” the shade of Erren murmured, “it is I who must trust you.”
“I might have killed her many times,” Alis said. “Yet I have not.”
“You wait for the daughter, perhaps.”
“No,” Alis said, desperately now. “You do not understand the Veren so well as you think if you suggest that we might harm Anne.”
“Perhaps you wish to control her, though,” Erren said. “Control the true queen.”
“That is nearer the truth, at least as far as the coven was concerned,” Alis admitted. “But I was not of the inner circle. I never fully understood the goals of the Veren, and now I do not care.”
“You say the sisters are all dead. What of the brothers?”
Alis felt her heart trip. “You know of them?”
“Not before now. I guessed. The Order of Saint Cer has its male counterpart. The Veren must as well. But do you understand how dangerous it is if only the males remain? If only their voices are raised in council?”
“No,” Alis said, “I don’t. I wish only to serve Muriele, to bring her to safety, to help her preserve her country.”
“Is this true?”
Alis felt something pinch someplace inside her. It didn’t hurt, but she felt suddenly very faint, and her pulse beat weirdly, as if trying to escape her body.
“I swear to you it is true,” she gasped. “I swear it on the saint we swear by.”
“Name her.”
“Virgenya.”
After a pause, the pressure eased a bit but did not vanish.
“It’s so hard to hang on,” Erren said. “We forget, the dead.”
“You seem to remember quite a lot,” Alis observed, recovering her composure.
“I cling to what I must. I do not remember my parents or being a little girl. I do not recall if I ever loved a man or a woman. I cannot imagine the shape of my living face. But I remember my duty.
“I remember that. And I remember her. Can you protect her? Will you?”
“Yes,” Alis said weakly. “I swear it.”
“And what if the men of the Veren remain and come to you? What then? What if they come to you and ask you to do harm to her or her daughter?”
“I am the queen’s now,” Alis insisted. “Hers, not theirs.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“You were coven-trained. If the Church had asked you to kill Muriele, would you have done it?”
Erren’s laughter was soft and without humor. “I was asked,” she said.
The hairs pricked up on Alis’ neck. “Who?” she asked. “Who gave you that order? Hespero?”
“Hespero?” Her voice seemed more distant. “I do not remember that name. Perhaps he is not important. No, I don’t remember who sent the word. But it must have been someone very highly placed, or I would never have considered it.”
“You considered it?” Alis asked, shocked.
“I think that I did.”
“Then there must have been a reason,” Alis said.
“Not reason enough to do it.”
“What is happening, Erren? The world is coming apart. The law of death is broken. Who is my enemy?”
“I died, Alis,” the shade said. “If I had known these things, if I had known what to watch for, do you imagine I would be dead?”
“Oh.”
“Your enemies are her enemies. That is all you need to know. It makes it simple.”
“Simple,” Alis agreed, though she knew it could not be simple.
“You will live,” Erren said. “Everyone thinks you are dead. What will you do?”
“Anne is alive,” Alis said.
“Anne?”
“Muriele’s youngest daughter.”
“Ah, yes. I told her that.”
“She lives, and so does Fail de Liery and many others loyal to the queen. Robert fears that an army will gather behind Anne, and not without reason.”
“An army,” Erren mused. “The daughter leading an army. I wonder how that will work out.”
“I think I can help,” Alis said. “The queen is watched too closely, and she is kept in the Wolfcoat Tower, far from any of the hidden passages. I think her only hope for freedom is if Anne prevails, but that must happen soon, before Hansa and the Church can become involved.”
“How will you help, then? By murdering Robert?”
“I’ve thought of that, of course,” Alis said. “But I’m not certain he can be killed. He has also returned from death, Lady Erren, but he was wholly dead. He does not bleed like a man. I know not how to kill what he has become.”
“I may have once known such things,” Erren said. “No longer. What, then?”
“There is a man the usurper has imprisoned. If I can free him in Anne’s name, I believe even the most reluctant landwaerden will rally to her cause. It should tip the balance.”