The Vralkaani soldiers had covered half the distance between the forest and the shrine. People began to back away from the cobbler’s son, away from the shrine, away from the booths. With a howl of rage, the soldiers’ quarry swept his arm across another booth, sending rows of statuettes to their demise.
And then he turned and grasped the velvet cords that sectioned off the Steps of Sithonia. The muscles of his back and arms strained visibly as he hauled the ropes and the posts that anchored them loose from their moorings, and hurled them into the still blue depths of Lake Khirzak.
With a splash, the tangle of ropes and posts sank into the water and disappeared. The cobbler’s son faced the crowd, holding out his bleeding hands, his eyes now strangely tranquil. His naked chest, smeared with grime and shining with sweat, heaved from his exertions.
Name of Elua, but he’s young, Chrétien thought in anguish. How can they just stand, how can they bear to watch? I will never, until my death, understand this country.
“Once Vralia served the glory of God,” the cobbler’s son said quietly. “Now God serves the glory of Janos Vralkaan, and we are all Profaners.”
In the silence that followed, the troops of the Prince-Protectorate arrived. No one spoke.
“Get back!” the soldiers’ captain shouted at the crowd, his badge flashing on the front of his cap, silver braid winking on its brim. “Back!” He unslung his musket, and his men followed suit. Four of them took warning aim at the crowd. The other five trained their muskets on the cobbler’s son, alone and half-naked on the shore.
Rikard stood rigid in the crowd. Chrétien’s hand locked onto his upper arm, nails digging into his flesh. “Do something!” he hissed. “You’re the Governor’s son!”
“I can’t,” Rikard murmured. He looked at Chrétien with eyes full of despair. “He killed Vralkaani soldiers, don’t you see? It doesn’t matter why. There’s nothing I can do; it would be treason.”
The captain raised his hand. His troops waited motionless.
“Fire,” the captain said.
They did.
One ball caught the cobbler’s son in the right shoulder, spinning him around and making the other shots go wild. He staggered, raising a hand to his bleeding shoulder.
“Oh God,” Rikard whispered. The cobbler’s son had just traced the first three Steps of Sithonia.
“Reload,” said the captain. “Fire.”
Two more shots struck the youth, driving him, spinning, half-falling, each faltering step tracing one of St. Sithonia’s crimson footprints. “No,” Rikard heard himself saying, “No, no, no.” His arm was numb from the pressure of Chrétien’s grip.
“Reload,” said the captain again. “Fire.”
The cobbler’s son lifted his eyes to the sun.
When the final volley struck him, his body jerked like a puppet’s, wildly, flailing; it was impossible that he kept his feet, bleeding from more than half a dozen fatal wounds; impossible that every staggering step he took was tracing, continued to trace, each and every one of the Steps of Sithonia. And yet he did.
In silence, the captain lowered his hand.
In silence, the cobbler’s son crumpled and fell to the stones.
In silence, the barren, bloodstained rocks brought forth a profusion of roses, wild and crimson.
They lingered only for a moment, blossoming in glorious billows of scarlet and vermilion, twined with glimpses of thorns and green vines; then they withered, faded, and passed from existence, leaving behind only the body of the cobbler’s son, pale and motionless on the shore.
“Take him,” said the captain, his jaw clenched on his disbelief. Faces blank with shock, the soldiers moved to obey. And for the second time that day, a tremendous shout split the sky; not raw and anguished, this, but a gilded trumpet-peal of denial.
“NO!”
With an awful feeling of recognition, Rikard realized that there was only one throat in Vralia that could have uttered that sound. Before he could comprehend the flash of movement to his left and the absence of the death grip upon his arm, he saw.
Between the cobbler’s son and the soldiers stood Chrétien L’Envers, the Dauphin of Terre d’Ange. His sword gleamed beneath the merciless sun. His hat had blown off. His hair had come loose from its casual braid and it shone like a noonday star. His face, naked in its beauty, seemed to blaze with a terrible light in the harsh Vralian landscape.
“Do you dare?” he asked the captain, smiling a deadly smile. Sunlight ran like water down the length of his sword. “Do you dare?”
Now, only now, people began falling to their knees; some gasping, some wailing. Three of the soldiers threw down their muskets. Oh God, Rikard thought like a man waking from a dream; they’ve never seen a D’Angeline, they’re not sure he’s human; and why should they, after all, when he’s not—not wholly? Oh God, Angelicus, you shouldn’t be out there alone, not here, not in this matter. It is our grief, our shame, our loss.