Skara blinked down at the flashing jewel in the chain’s centre, a diamond the size of an acorn in a claw of gold. She knew it well. Had seen it every night in her dreams. It had gleamed with reflected fire on the hilt of Bright Yilling’s sword as he killed Mother Kyre and King Fynn.
She felt a shiver of disgust, wanted to tear the chain off and fling it in the sea along with the memories of that night. But for better or worse they were part of her, and she could not refuse the gift. She straightened, and worked her shoulders back, and wondered if she did not like the weight of the chain upon them after all.
To her, it murmured a reassurance. She had been through the fire, and like the best steel come out stronger.
To others, it spoke a threat. No matter your fame, make an enemy of this woman and you will end up one more lump of metal on her chain.
‘A gift fit for a High Queen of the Shattered Sea,’ she said, pressing it to her chest.
‘I wished to set your mind at rest since I am … perhaps not the man you would have chosen. I wished to tell you that I mean to be a good husband. To defer to you in matters of the coin and the key. To give you sons.’
Skara swallowed at that, but it was a proper thing to say, and Mother Kyre would never have forgiven her if she had not made a proper reply. ‘No less do I mean to be a good wife to you. To defer to you in matters of the plough and the sword. To give you daughters.’
Gorm’s craggy face broke out in a strange grin. ‘I hope so.’ He glanced down at Druin, staring up at him from so far below. ‘Small people, at your feet, to whom you can give the future. That seems a fine thing.’
Skara tried not to let her doubts show. Tried to give a winning, willing smile. ‘We will find our way through it together, hand in hand.’ And she held hers out to him.
It looked tiny, and white, and smooth in his great scarred paw. It looked like a child’s hand. But its grip was the firmer. It seemed his trembled.
‘I have no doubt you will make as fine a husband as you do a warrior,’ she said, putting her other hand under his to still it.
‘We will be as formidable together as Mother Sea and Father Earth.’ He brightened as he moved to more familiar ground. ‘And I will start by bringing you the High King’s head as a wedding gift!’
Skara winced. ‘I would prefer peace.’
‘Peace comes when you have killed all your enemies, my queen.’ Gorm took back his hand, bowed again, and strode off towards his ship.
‘If that chain around his neck should have taught him anything,’ murmured Laithlin, ‘it is that there are always more enemies.’
The Minister’s Battlefield
‘You think you have so much time,’ said Skifr, staring into the flames. ‘So many brave prizes ahead, so many harvests to reap. Mark my words, my dove, before you realize it, your glorious future has become a set of tired old stories, and there is nothing ahead but dust.’
Koll puffed out his cheeks. The firelight on Skifr’s face reminded him of the forgelight on Rin’s, dragged their miserable last meeting to his mind. Two women could hardly have looked less alike, but when you’re in a sorry mood, everything brings up a sorry memory.
‘Have some tea, eh?’ he ventured, trying and failing to sound perky as he pulled the pot off the fire. ‘Perhaps things won’t seem so dark afterward—’
‘Seize life with both hands!’ snapped Skifr, making Koll jump and nearly upend the pot in his lap. ‘Rejoice in what you have. Power, wealth, fame, they are ghosts! They are like the breeze, impossible to hold. There is no grand destination. Every path ends at the Last Door. Revel in the sparks one person strikes from another.’ She huddled into her cloak of rags. ‘They are the only light in the darkness of time.’
Koll dumped the pot back, making tea slop and hiss in the flames. ‘Have some tea, eh?’ Then he left Skifr alone with her darkness, and took his own out of the ruin and onto the hillside, staring down towards Skekenhouse, seat of the High King.
The Tower of the Ministry rose from the centre, perfect elf-stone and elf-glass soaring up and up, then sheared off by the Breaking of God, a crusting of man-made walls, towers, domes, roofs covering the wound like an unsightly scab. Specks circled those highest turrets. Doves, perhaps, like the ones Koll used to tend, bringing panicked messages from far-flung ministers. Or eagles sent out with Grandmother Wexen’s desperate last orders.
The High King’s vast new temple to the One God squatted in the elf-tower’s shadow, a damned ugly thing for all the effort lavished upon it, still crusted with scaffolding after ten years of building, half the rafters bare like the rib-bones of a long-dead corpse. He’d built it to show men could make great works too. All he’d proved was how feeble their best efforts were beside the relics of the elves.