For a long, charged moment it looked as though Gabriel might actually draw his sword, but at last he took a calming breath and withdrew his hand, clasping it firmly with the other. “Go on,” he told the druin.
“Astra, needless to say, was also changed. She despised Vespian for having sacrificed their daughter. She grew despondent, and within months of her resurrection she could no longer suffer the burden of grief, and so took her own life. But Vespian … Vespian brought her back. And when she killed herself once more, he used his cursed blade to revive her. Again and again she was revived, until …” He broke off.
“Until?” prompted Sabbatha.
“What came back was not Astra. Not anymore. The woman who wore her flesh was colder now, indifferent to beauty, or sorrow, or love. She became preoccupied with necromancy, and began to practice it without compunction. At first she revived only trivial things: flowers, birds, insects. The druins themselves are typically immune to such magic, which is why Tamarat exists in the first place, but before long she was bringing beloved servants back from the grave, or raising a slave who had collapsed dead from exhaustion.
“By now, Astra’s erratic behaviour and the Archon’s willingness to sacrifice his people was causing unrest throughout the Dominion. Soon after, Vespian lost his hold on the Exarchs. They rebelled against him, against one another, and so began the war that would spell the end of druinkind. But in the meantime, miraculously, Astra announced she was expecting a second child.”
Sabbatha, of course, cut in. “But you said—”
“One child per life.” Shadow raised an admonishing finger. “And it would seem undeath counted as her second. She gave birth to a son.”
“Dear fucking gods …” Moog was holding his head as though he feared it might crack apart.
The claw-broker nodded. “The boy grew up sickly and strange, an outcast from the moment he was born. Who both loved and feared his mother, yet despised his father for the evil he had wrought. Who stole Tamarat from Vespian and fled into the Heartwyld, that the cycle of his mother’s horrid half life might finally be broken.”
Gabriel’s eyes were downcast, fixed upon the sword he’d inherited, the blade itself a shard of a shattered world.
“This story …” Matrick was rubbing the grey-shot whiskers on his chin. “It’s familiar, isn’t it? Like I’ve heard it before somewhere, only told in a different way.”
“Or sung,” said Kit enigmatically, as if he’d already reached the conclusion Matrick was grasping for.
Shadow’s smile was that of a benevolent father, or a kindly priest, which made what he said next all the more ironic. “I imagine you have. Indeed, you already know the names of Vespian’s illfated children. The daughter, Glif. The son, Vail.”
Glif … Vail
Clay felt his mouth go dry. A hollow he hadn’t known was inside him yawned open, wide as an abyss, deep as the fathomless dark between stars, as his mind, reeling, gave names—druic names—to Grandual’s so-called gods.
Vespian, the Summer Lord. Astra, the Winter Queen. Glif, the Spring Maiden. Vail, the Autumn Son, known also as the Heathen.
The Heathen …Lastleaf.
“No,” he heard himself groan, as something in the fire snapped and gave off a puff of drifting smoke.
Clay had never been a particularly religious man. He offered prayers infrequently, and to no one in particular. But to learn that the gods of your people were not only a myth, but a myth derived from the sordid lives of an elder race that had once kept them as slaves … Even the most pragmatic mind would baulk at reconciling such a thing.
A long silence descended on the camp, as each of them digested—or tried to, anyway—the implications of Shadow’s story.
Moog sniffed, sat up, and peered into the dark outside the circle. “Does anyone else smell that?”
“Smell what?” Gabe asked, stirring from a stupor of his own.
Sabbatha stifled a yawn. “The ettin farted, I think.”
Moog shook his head. “No, it’s something I … I can’t put my finger on it …”
Gabriel laid his hands flat upon Vellichor’s scabbard. “Even so,” he said finally. “Lastleaf has gone too far. We can’t allow him to destroy Castia. And if he opens that Threshold he could threaten all of Grandual.”
Shadow nodded. The druin appeared to be deep in thought as well. “As you say.”
Something else cracked in the fire, and another plume of smoke went up, blue-green against the black of night. Matrick, Clay saw, was asleep where he sat, chin-to-chest and already drooling.
Suddenly, Moog stood up. “WINKFLOWER!” he shouted. “UP! WAKE UP!” He snatched up a spoon and a copper pot and started banging them together, striding in a circle around the camp.
Matrick jolted awake, knives spinning into his hands. Sabbatha, too, had drifted off, and now looked around wild-eyed. Gregor and Dane slept on, unperturbed by the sudden clamour.
Gabriel sat up, blinking. “Moog, what the—”
“It’s him!” Moog pointed at Shadow. “The seeds he threw on the fire! Winkflower! I knew it! I knew I knew that I knew it! He’s trying to kill us!”
Shadow spread his hands. “The seeds are harmless,” he declared. “I only thought you could use a restful sleep.”
Ganelon stood like a dark tower rising. He had Syrinx in hand—glowing now, whispering unfathomable words to the forest night—and shook his head to clear it of the druin’s spell. “Like hell you did.”
The claw-broker remained seated, though Matrick and Sabbatha both edged away from him. And then Shadow grinned, sharp teeth painted red by the fire.
“Very well,” he said. “But you should know I had not planned on killing you. I only sought to take what was rightfully mine.” The druin’s nature was changing rapidly, like spring turning to winter without all the fun stuff in between. His eyes had settled on Gabriel, who was first among them to comprehend the druin’s intent.
“You mean Vellichor?”
“It should not belong to you, human. That sword was never meant for mortal hands. The Archon made a grave mistake when he placed it in yours. You have no idea what it is you are holding.”
“Why don’t you tell me then?” said Gabriel. He wore a sneer that Clay recognized from way back—the one he used to put on whenever some villain waxed poetic about their plan to destroy this town, or assassinate that queen, or summon some unholy demon from the icy depths of hell.
“It is a key,” said Shadow, and Clay saw Gabriel’s sneer wilt just a fraction. “Lastleaf said that Vellichor is our only means of going home, to return at last to our own world.”
“A world your people left for a reason,” said Kit soothingly. “If you—”
The claw-broker spat on the fire. “Kaksara!”
Clay didn’t know many druic curse words, but he knew that one, and he took insult on behalf of Kit’s long-departed mother. Clay’s heart started to pound. The blood in his veins ran hot, and his right hand flexed, itching to feel the familiar weight of Blackheart’s grip. There was violence coming. He could feel it in the air, foreboding as clouds before a summer storm.
The druin was still seated, but he seemed menacing nonetheless. The light from the fire seemed to throw his shadow in every direction. One of his hands, Clay saw, had curled around the haft of his whitewood staff.
“Give up the sword,” said Shadow, “or I will take it, and do Lastleaf the favour of killing you besides. It may be that his vision exceeds our own. The Dominion had its time, and now the Courts. Perhaps the age of fey and fell things is at hand.”
“Here we go,” said Matrick, groaning as he got to his feet.
Moog was already rifling through his pack. “Friggin rabbits,” he muttered. “So friggin dramatic all the time …”
Sabbatha’s gauntlets curled into fists. Ganelon remained where he was, patient as a mountain in the breath before an avalanche. Clay dipped his shoulder, and Blackheart fell into his right hand, while his left grazed the ice-cold haft of his hammer.