“You know who I am,” he said. “Who are you?”
She gave a mirthless smile. “I’m a songbird in a cage. And now so are you.”
He tried to summon the blood-song, searching for some guiding note but finding nothing.
“No songs here, my lord,” the woman told him. “No gifts. Only those he brings and they are rarely welcome.”
“He?”
A spasm of fury passed over her face and her hand slammed onto the table. “Don’t play with me! Do not act the fool! You know very well where you are and who holds you here.”
“As he holds you.”
The woman reclined, relaxing with a soft laugh. “His punishments are cruel but unimaginative, for the most part. This room, the cold, no other distraction save memory, and I have many of those.” Her hand moved to her chest, massaging the flesh between her breasts, eyes growing distant. “Did you ever love anyone, my lord?”
The sound came again, louder this time and he was certain it was a voice speaking his name, distant but familiar.
He ignored her question and went to the window, looking out on a shifting landscape, the sky a rapidly swirling canvas of cloud above tall mountains. He watched as they slowly descended, the slopes become less steep, richer in grass until he looked upon a land of gently rolling hills.
“It changes by the hour,” the woman told him. “Mountains, oceans, jungles. Places he knew once I suspect.”
“Why did he put you here?” Vaelin asked. “What was your crime?”
Her hand stopped moving on her chest and she returned it to the table. “Loving and not being loved in return. That was my crime.”
“I’ve met your kind before. There’s no love in you.”
“Trust me, my lord. You have never met my kind.” She nodded at the table.
The flute hadn’t been there before but now it sat on the gleaming wooden surface. It was a simple instrument, fashioned from bone, the surface stained with age and use, but somehow he knew if he picked it up and put it to his lips the tune it birthed would be very strong.
“VAELIN!”
There was no mistaking it now, a voice beyond this room was calling his name with enough power to shake the stones.
“He’ll give it back to you,” the woman said, inclining her head at the flute. “It’s a hard thing for those like us to live without a song.”
The room shuddered, the bricks beginning to break apart as something assailed them from outside, mortar and stone fragmenting and warm white light breaking through the cracks.
“Just pick it up,” the woman said. “We’ll sing together when he sends us back. And what a song we’ll make.”
He looked at the flute, hating himself for how much he wanted it. “Do you have a name?” he asked the woman.
“A hundred or more, probably. But my favourite was the one I earned before I accepted the Ally’s kind bargain. At my father’s behest I once laid waste to a land in the south where the local savages were proving troublesome. A superstitious folk, they thought me a witch. Elverah, they called me.”
“Elverah.” He looked again at the flute as the wall behind him gave a loud crack of shattered stone. He met her gaze and gave a smile before turning his back on her and the flute. “I’ll remember.”
He heard her shouting as the wall exploded, light flooding the room and banishing the cold. “Tell your brother!” she cried. “He could kill me a thousand times and it would change nothing!”
The light came for him, embracing him with its blessed warmth, drawing him from the room. It seemed to seep into him as he was pulled away, bringing visions of a face he knew. “You shine brightly too,” Dahrena told him. “So easy to find.”
Light filled his gaze, the last vestiges of cold banishing . . . but then a final shiver as another voice reached him. Not the woman this time, something far older, the voice free of all expression save certainty. “We will make an ending, you and I.”
He woke with a shout, convulsing and shivering, as cold and weary as it was possible to be and still live. He felt a weight on his chest, finding his hands tangled in long silken tresses. Dahrena groaned and raised her head, her face pale and eyes dim with exhaustion. “So easy to find,” she said softly.
“Vaelin!” Reva was kneeling at his side, smiling and weeping. Behind her he could see Hera Drakil standing with his warriors, a deep disquiet on his hawk face.
“I thought it was Darkblade,” he replied.
She laughed and pressed a kiss to his forehead, tears flowing freely. “There is no Darkblade. It’s a story for children.”
He put an arm around her shoulders as she wept, searching inside himself and knowing what he would find. It’s gone. The song is gone.
PART V
My father has never been a man to indulge in deep reflection or wise pronouncements. His few writings and typically terse correspondence make dry reading indeed, riven as they are with the mundane inanities of military life. But there was one occasion that has stayed at the forefront of my memory, something he said the night Marbellis fell. We stood on a hilltop watching the flames rise above the walls, hearing the screams of the townsfolk as the Realm Guard gave vent to bestial vengeance, and I felt the need to ask him why his mood was so sombre, had he not just secured a victory worthy of glorious celebration for all the ages? I was, you may understand, quite drunk.
My father’s gaze never lifted from the tormented city and I heard him say, “All victory is an illusion.”
VERNIERS’ ACCOUNT
“Set sail!” the general was shouting at the ship’s captain, voice pitched just below a scream. “Set sail I said! Get this hulk moving!”
I went to the rail as the slave-sailors rushed in answer to the captain’s orders. The remnants of the army were being herded towards the river now, Varitai fighting to the end in dumb obedience, Free Swords taking to the water in panic. A half mile to the south the Free Cavalry seemed to be making a stand against the men in green cloaks, whoever had command of them rallying his men with admirable coolness as they attempted to break out. It proved a vain ambition however, as a great host of horsemen appeared to their rear, launching a cloud of arrows from the saddle before driving their charge home. Within seconds all vestige of organised resistance had vanished from the Volarian army, leaving only a terrorised mob with no chance of escape.
I turned my gaze from the ugly spectacle and saw a lone rider galloping along the causeway, followed by what seemed to be thousands of men and women with clubs and bows, not a scrap of armour amongst them. The distance was too great to make out the face of the rider but I had no doubt as to his identity.
“Faster!” the general was shouting amidst the racket of the anchor’s chain. “If this ship isn’t at sea within the day, I’ll see the backbone of every slave aboard!”
“Are you sure?” Fornella asked, standing near the map table, wine cup in hand. “Returning home with such impressive tidings is not something I would recommend.”
“We’re not going home,” he snapped back. “We return to Varinshold to await the next wave. When they get here I will build an army that will leave this land barren. Write this down, slave!” he snarled at me. “I, General Reklar Tokrev hereby decree the extermination of all denizens of this province . . .”
I was reaching for parchment when something caught my eye. The ship had finally begun to pull away as the sails unfurled and the prevailing wind took us downriver, the crew deaf to the entreaties of the Free Swords struggling in the water. I squinted at the sight of a new sail appearing above a bend in the river little under a mile ahead. I had seen enough of ships by now to recognise the Meldenean pennant fluttering from the mainmast, a large black flag signifying the sighting of an enemy. A shout from the rigging confirmed I was not labouring under a fear-born delusion.