“I’m starting to realise that understanding my brother’s actions may be a task beyond me.” She looked up from her sketch. “Why do you call him Darkblade?”
“It’s the name my people gave him. The Fourth Book foretold a fearsome heretic warrior who wields his sword with the aid of the Dark.”
“Do you believe such silliness?”
Reva flushed and looked away. “The love of the Father is not silliness. Do you consider your Faith silly? Bowing down to the imaginary shades of your ancestors.”
“I don’t bow down to anything. My parents now, they were devoted in their adherence to the Ascendant Creed, the path to perfection and wisdom, attainable through the right combination of words, a poem or a song that could unlock all the secrets of the soul and with it, the world. They used to drag me along to their meetings, held in secret in those days. We’d gather in basements and recite our creeds. Mumma would get cross when I giggled through mine. I thought it all such nonsense.”
“So she beat you for your heresy?”
Alornis blinked at her. “Beat me? Of course not.”
Reva looked away again, realising she had made a mistake.
“Reva?” Alornis put her sketch aside and came to sit beside her, touching a hand to her shoulder. “Were you . . . ? Did someone . . . ?”
Filthy, Fatherless sinner! “Don’t!” She jerked away, rising, walking to the other side of the willow, the priest’s words hounding her. “I know what lies festering in your heart, girl. I saw your eyes on her . . .” The hickory cane he used fell with every word as she stood there, arms at her sides, forbidden to move, or cry out. “You befoul the Book of Reason! You befoul the Book of Laws! You befoul the Book of Judgement!” His last blow caught her on the temple, sending her to the barn floor, dazed and bleeding onto the straw. “By rights I should kill you, but you are saved by your blood. This mission given to us by the Father Himself saves you. But if we are to succeed, I must beat the sin from you.” And he did, until the pain was such she felt nothing more and blackness engulfed her.
She was on her knees in the grass, hugging herself. Filthy, Fatherless sinner.
Al Sorna returned from the Sixth Order’s castle as the afternoon sun began to wane. He said nothing, motioning the guard company into their ranks and riding on without pause. His silence stayed in place until nightfall when they made camp and ate a supper of bland but hearty soldier’s fare. Reva sat across from Alornis, eating mechanically and avoiding her gaze. Too long, she thought continually. Too long with him. Too long with her.
There was a scrape of boot leather and she looked up to find Al Sorna standing over her. “It’s time I fulfilled our bargain.”
They left Alornis at the fire and found a spot amongst the field of long grass fringing the road, far enough away to be out of earshot. Reva sat on the grass cross-legged as Al Sorna crouched nearby, meeting her gaze intently. “What do you know about your father’s death?” he asked. “Not what you’ve imagined. What do you truly know?”
“The Eleventh Book relates how he was mustering his forces at the High Keep to meet your invasion. You led an attack, using the Dark to find your way into the keep. He died bravely, but the Trueblade of the World Father was cast down by superior numbers and Dark skill.”
“In other words, nothing. Since there were no survivors amongst his followers, whoever wrote this Eleventh Book of yours wasn’t there. He wasn’t mustering an army. He was waiting, with a hostage, someone I cared about. He used her to compel me to disarm so he could kill me. And he didn’t die bravely, he died confused and maddened by something that made him kill his father.”
Reva shook her head. The priest had warned her many times it would be this way when she moved amongst heretics. They won so they get to write the story. But still the words needled her. Reluctant as she was to admit it, there was a truth to the Darkblade. He hid things, left many things unsaid, but still there was a basic honesty to him. And, unlike her unknowable father, she could actually hear his words. “You lie,” she said, forcing conviction into her tone.
“Do I?” His gaze was unwavering, holding her fast. “I think you know the truth in my words. I think you’ve always known it’s your father’s tale that’s the lie.”
She tore her gaze away, closing her eyes. This is his power, she realised. This is where his Darkness resides. Not in his sword, in his words. A clever trick, to speak a lie through a mask of truth and trust. “The sword,” she said, voice hoarse and thick.
“We were in the Lord’s chamber at the High Keep. My brother threw an axe that took him in the chest. He died instantly. I recall his sword tumbled off into the shadows. I didn’t take it, nor did I ever see any of my brothers or my men with it.”
“You said you knew where to find it.”
She knew the answer before he voiced it, but still the words cut her, worse than any stroke of the priest’s cane. “I lied, Reva.”
She closed her eyes. A fiery tremble covering her from head to toe. “Why?” was all she could say, the word spoken in the faintest whisper.
“Your people say I have the Dark. But that, as a much wiser soul once told me, is a word for the ignorant. It’s like a song, a song that guides me. And it guided me to you. It would have been so easy to lose you in the forest that first night, but the song told me to wait for you. Told me to keep you close, teach you what you hadn’t been taught by whoever sent you for me.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why you were only taught the knife? Not the bow or the sword, or anything that might have given you a chance against me? Given just enough skill to make you a threat, just dangerous enough to make me kill you. The blood of the Trueblade fallen to the Darkblade. A fresh martyr. There was someone else there that night when you came for me. My song found them when it found you. Someone followed you, waiting, watching. A witness, hungry for another chapter to the Eleventh Book.”
She rose to her feet and he rose with her. The sword shifted on her back, like a snake uncoiling for a strike. “Why?” she said.
“Your father’s followers need me. They need their great heretic enemy. Without me they’re just a group of madmen worshipping the ghost of another madman. You were sent in search of a thing that can’t be found, in the hope that I would kill you, birthing more hate to fuel their holy cause. Your only value to them is in your blood and your death. They care nothing for you, but I do.”
The sword came free of the scabbard, straight and true as an arrow as she flew towards him. He didn’t move, didn’t twist, didn’t dodge, just stood still, expression unchanging as the sword point pierced his shirt and flesh. Reva realised she was crying, a dimly remembered sensation from childhood, when the priest had first taken her and his beatings had seemed cruel. “Why?” she grated through tears.
The sword point had penetrated the shirt and inch of flesh. Only a small thrust and the Darkblade would be gone to his well-deserved eternity of torment.
“For the same reason I now deny my song though it screams at me to let you go,” he said, face and voice lacking any trace of fear. “For the same reason you can’t kill me.” His hand came up, slowly reaching out to caress her cheek. “I came back to this land to find a sister. Instead I found two.”
“I am not your sister. I am not your friend. I seek the sword of the Trueblade to unite all in the love of the Father.”
He gave a small sigh of frustration, shaking his head. “Your World Father is nothing more than a thousand-year-old collection of myth and legend. And if he did exist, his bishops say he hates you for what you are.”
The trembling grew to a shudder, making the sword vibrate in her grip. One small thrust . . . She reeled away, stumbling to the ground.