“Rose, are you okay? Are you safe?”
“Dad …” His daughter bowed her head. The last time Clay had seen Rose she’d been no higher than his waist, brash and chatty, brimming with curiosity. A lot like Tally, except considerably less well behaved. He remembered thinking at the time it was because she was an only child, but had decided since then that Gabe and Val were just shitty parents. “I’m in Castia,” said Rose eventually.
Gabe swallowed. “I know.”
She looked up. “It’s awful here. The city’s surrounded. We can’t fight our way out. We tried tunneling, but … well, we’re trapped, Dad. Our food is almost gone, and I think something’s wrong with the water. Half the city is sick with the plague.”
“We saw,” said Gabriel. “They poisoned the river.”
“How do you …” she began, and then turned to someone they couldn’t see. “I told them, didn’t I? Go tell Arik to cordon off the reservoir.”
“What’ll we drink?” a voice asked.
“Our own piss if it comes to it!” Rose snapped. “Wine, ale—anything but water. Remember those orange trees we saw yesterday? Yeah? Well go make some fucking juice.”
Gabriel interjected. “Rose, who’s in charge there?”
“No one,” she said, exasperated, and then chuckled darkly. “Me. Freecloud and I are leading what’s left of the mercs, but the people here resent having more mouths to feed, and the Guard is giving us a hard time. They’re hoarding supplies, and most of our injured died because we couldn’t get them proper care. I’m afraid it might come to blood soon.”
“Who is Freecloud?” Gabe asked. Clay had been wondering the same thing, actually. Fatherhood was a funny thing.
Rose glanced to her left. “He’s my … he’s just … someone I met on the way here. He’s a good man, Dad. A great fighter. You’d like him.”
Gabriel sighed into the smoke. “Listen, Rose. I—”
“I know,” she broke in. “I should have listened to you. You were right. I wasn’t ready for this. None of us were.” Rose took a deep breath and pulled her hair back from her forehead. It was a gesture Gabe himself might have made. “I’m sorry, Dad, but I don’t think we’re getting out of this. I think …” She looked left again, at Freecloud, presumably. “I think we’re going to die here.”
“No, you’re not.” Gabe’s voice was hard as stone. “I’m coming for you.”
A disbelieving pause. “You’re what? You’re coming here? To Castia?”
“We’re almost there, honey. Just east of the mountains. We’ll be there in two weeks, maybe less. I need you to stay safe until then, okay?”
“Really?” Rose’s excitement was palpable. She glanced around her. “Did you hear that? They’re coming for us! The Courts sent an army to break the siege.”
Gabriel interrupted a chorus of desultory cheers. “Rose, wait. The Courts didn’t send an army.”
“What? Who are you with then?”
“I, uh …” Gabe wrung his hands. “It’s just me and the band, actually.”
Rose’s ghost wilted visibly. “What, you mean your band? As in Saga? Are you kidding me?”
“Well … no. But Rose, we’re all here! Even Ganelon.”
“Even Ganelon?” she echoed. “Oh, well, shit. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Hey everyone! Everything’s going to be fine! Fucking Ganelon’s on his way to break the siege!”
There were no cheers this time, but Clay heard Ganelon murmur under his breath, “Sounds about right.”
Rose squared up to her father. “So what? You and four of your friends are coming to Castia? You know there’s a bloody Horde outside? You won’t even make it near the city. Hell, I’m surprised you made it as far as you have!”
Clay considered offering up the fact that it wasn’t just Saga coming to her rescue, but a wine-swilling ghoul, an amnesiac daeva, and a half-blind ettin were along for the ride as well. Then again, if something sounded ridiculous in your head, then voicing it aloud rarely did it any favours.
Gabriel looked about to muster a reply, but his daughter rolled over him. “Dad, seriously, don’t come here. Okay? Just … don’t. There’s nothing you can do. I …” She faltered, and when she spoke again her voice had lost its cutting edge. “I’m grateful you came this far. I really am. It was very brave. But I don’t want you to die because of me.”
Gabe snapped out of his stupor. “Rose, I—”
“Dad, go home.”
The words rocked Clay like a punch. He felt as though he might be sick, and he could only imagine what Gabriel was feeling. He had come so far, through so much, only to hear the one for whom he had done it all demand that he abandon her. Clay heard Sabbatha catch her breath beside him, and Moog, crouched in the space between Gabe and his daughter, looked much as he had in the chieftain’s tent—as though his own heart were breaking all over again.
“Not long,” urged the wizard quietly. “The spell will end soon.”
Gabriel straightened. “Rose, listen to me. Do you remember the stories I used to tell when you were little?”
Rose looked down at her feet. “Of course I do.”
“You never asked me if they were true. You believed whatever I told you, no matter how incredible it was.”
The light beneath Rose was beginning to fade. Her apparition flickered as she spoke. “I was a little girl.”
“And you’re not anymore. I know that. But I need you to believe in one more story, Rose.” If Gabe’s voice had been stone before, now it was harder, colder, the mask of ice on a mountain’s wind-scarred face. “I am coming to Castia,” he said. “I am going to save you.”
His daughter looked up, took a breath as if to speak, and vanished.
The light beneath Gabriel went out as well. He remained where he was, a wraith cloaked in a shroud of cinnamon smoke.
Chapter Forty-one
Out of the Woods
They left the ruins shortly after noon. Before doing so, however, Gabriel reached into his pack and withdrew one of the salt-scoured stones from the bottom. Clay recalled learning why he’d brought them in the first place: not as a gift, but an offering, something to lay on Rose’s grave in case the worst should happen. Gabriel peered down at the stone, thumbing a cavity left behind by a fossilized shell. After a moment he sighed and tossed it to the ground, then upended the pack and dumped the rest at his feet.
Gabe found Clay watching as he looked up. He smiled—the expression for once unburdened by the weight in his eyes. “Those were heavier than they looked,” he said before turning and setting out after the others.
Clay followed a short time later. Behind him in the empty courtyard, the stones of a distant shore were piled neatly on the druin’s grave. Because even a misspent life, he reasoned, was worth remembering.
The road vanished, but Gabriel led them unerringly westward. If a bog appeared he waded into it without slowing. If the forest hindered their path he hacked through it with his sword, turning copses to corpses and pressing on. He cut short every stop for rest and roused them each morning while even the sun was snoring.
They were nearing the edge of the forest, and the denizens of the Heartwyld said good-bye in their own special way. They were set upon by a gremlin war party whose only aim turned out to be stealing the silver buttons from Moog’s robe. They were ambushed by a clutch of old treants who fled after Ganelon felled the biggest with a single chop. They were attacked one sweltering dawn by something like a bloodred tiger with wings that hummed like a dragonfly’s, prompting Matrick to ask after they’d driven it off, “Does anyone know what the fuck that was?”