“I think I’ve seen sufficient horrors recently.” Merial gave Draker a broad but empty smile and accepted a bowl of goat stew from Thirty-Four.
They had occupied the unfortunate governor’s mansion, though much of it was rendered uninhabitable due to the mob’s attentions. Frentis camped in the main courtyard, the rest of the army that had followed him from Viratesk taking up residence in the extensive gardens. He had been surprised and gratified by their discipline, keeping to their companies and taking a comparatively small part in the looting that continued to preoccupy the newly liberated populace. Perhaps a dozen fighters had disappeared in the aftermath of the city’s fall, and a few more had asked his permission to leave, either to return to distant homes or in frank admission they had seen their fill of war. He told them all the same thing, “You freed yourselves the moment you joined me. Queen Lyrna thanks you for your service.”
“So the queen marches on Volar?” Illian asked Merial. “Despite losing so many at sea?”
“Not a woman to be easily dissuaded, the queen.” Merial took a bite of stew and favoured Thirty-Four with an appreciative grin. “Better ’n that slop the pirates dish out, when they’re not bein’ overly free with their hands.”
“When do we sail?” Illian asked Frentis, a keen eagerness shining in her eyes.
Will she ever grow tired of it? he wondered. “At the discretion of the Fleet Lord. He holds rank here.”
“Fuck his rank,” Lekran muttered around a mouthful of stew, speaking in his laboured Realm Tongue. “Don’t know him.”
Frentis turned back to Merial. “You say the queen believes Lady Reva dead?”
She nodded. “Gone to the bottom along with half her heretic followers.”
“No, she lives. In Volar.” He shuddered at the memory of the previous night’s dream, the surging joy as she drank in the sight of Lady Reva battling the dagger-toothed cats. “Though for how much longer I can’t say.”
Merial frowned at him, a line of suspicion appearing on her brow. “You know this, brother?”
“I do. Beyond doubt.”
Her frown deepened as she angled her head, eyes tracking over his face. “I sense no gift in you . . .”
“I know it,” he said, an edge colouring his voice. “And the queen should know it too.”
She gave a cautious nod and returned to her meal. “Allow a girl to fill her belly first, then I’ll have a word with my darlin’ husband.”
“What husband?” Draker asked with a bemused frown but Merial just grinned and kept eating.
Later she sat apart from them, taking on a concentrated stillness, eyes close and face devoid of expression. “Don’t like this, brother,” Draker murmured, moving to Frentis’s side and eyeing the sister with obvious distrust. “Dark ain’t s’posed to be seen.”
“The world changed when Varinshold fell,” Frentis told him. “Now none of us have anywhere to hide.”
Sister Merial gave a sudden jerk, her back arching and eyes flying open, a small but distinct gasp of shock escaping her lips. She slumped forward with a groan, hands covering her face, slim shoulders moving in jerking sobs.
“Don’t like this,” Draker muttered again, moving back to the fire.
Frentis went to Merial, now hugging herself, face set in forlorn misery. “Sister?” he prompted.
She glanced up at him then looked away, hands tracing over her tear-streaked face as she rose, walking from the courtyard without a word. He waited a while before following, finding her perched atop a podium in the gardens. The statue it once held had been torn down and hauled off during the riots, no doubt destined for the smelter, bronze being a valuable metal. Sister Merial suddenly seemed very young, legs dangling over the edge of the podium as she raised her still-damp face to the sky. She spared him a brief glance before returning her gaze to the stars.
“They’re different,” she said. “Not all, just some.”
“The Maiden’s arm points home,” he said.
She nodded, lowering her gaze. “Aspect Caenis is dead.”
He winced as the pain hit home, a slashing stroke of instant grief. Sagging a little, he went to the podium, resting his hands on its heavily chipped edge. “Your husband told you this?”
“Brother Lernial, whom you’ve met I believe.”
“I didn’t know the Seventh Order were permitted to marry.”
“’Course we are. Where d’you think all the little brothers and sisters come from? We’ve always been more a family than an Order, ever on the hunt for new blood though.”
He sighed a weary laugh. “How did it happen?”
“A battle. The details are vague, my husband’s gift is a tad erratic, ’specially when coloured by so much grief. A rather terrible encounter, from what I can gather. Your red men are a ghastly lot indeed. It seems the queen secured victory in the end, so I doubt they number nine thousand any longer.”