Modina stood alone on the little hill just beyond the city. This was the first time she had been outside the palace gates in more than a year. Four men with pickaxes had worked the better part of three days, cutting through the frozen ground to make a hole deep enough for the grave. What had taken days to dig was filled in just minutes, leaving a dark mound on a field of white.
Her reunion with the world was bittersweet, because her first act was to bury a friend. The gravediggers tried to explain it was customary to wait until spring, but Modina insisted. She had to see him put to rest.
Seventeen soldiers waited at the base of the hill. Some trotted a perimeter on horseback, while others kept a watchful eye on her or the surrounding area. As she stood quietly in that bleak landscape, her robe shimmered and flapped in the wind like gossamer.
“You did this to me,” she accused the dirt mound before her.
Modina had not seen him since Dahlgren. She knew of him the way she knew about everything.
Saldur enjoyed the sound of his own voice, which made him an excellent tutor. The regent even talked to himself when no one else was around. When he did not know something, he always summoned experts to the sanctity of his office, the one place he felt safe from prying ears. Most of the names and places had been meaningless at first, but with repetition, everything became clear. Modina learned of Androus Billet from Rhenydd, who had murdered King Urith, Queen Amiter, and their children. Androus succeeded where Percy Braga had failed when trying to seize control of Melengar. She learned how Monsignor Merton, though loyal to the church, was becoming a liability because he was a true believer. She heard that the regents could not decide if King Roswort of Dunmore’s biggest asset was his cowardice or his greed. She learned the names of Cornelius and Cosmos DeLur, men the regents saw as genuine threats unless properly controlled. Their influence on trade was crucial to maintaining imperial stability.
In the beginning Modina heard without listening as the words just flowed past. Over time, their constant presence filtered through the fog, settling like silt upon her mind. The day his name floated by was the first time she actually paid attention to what was being said.
The regents were toasting him for their success. Initially, Modina thought he was in Saldur’s study, sharing a glass of spirits with them, but eventually it became apparent they were mocking him. His efforts were instrumental to their rise, but he would not share in the rewards. They spoke of him as a mad lunatic who had served his purpose. Instead of executing him, he had been locked in the secret prison—that oubliette for refuse they wanted to forget.
He died alone in the darkness. The doctors said it was due to starvation, but Modina knew better. She was intimately familiar with the demons that visited prisoners trapped in that darkness: regret, hopelessness, and most of all, fear. She knew how the fiends worked—entering in silence, filling a void, and growing until the soul was pushed out, until nothing remained. Like an old tree, the trunk could continue to stand while the core rotted away, but when all strength was gone, the first breeze would snap the spirit.
She knelt down and felt the gritty texture of a cold clump of dirt in her hand. Her father had loved the soil. He would break it up with his huge leathery fingers and smell it. He even tasted it. Field and farm had been his whole world, but they would not be hers.
“I know you meant well,” she said. “I know you believed. You thought you were standing up for me, protecting me, saving me. In some ways, you succeeded. You might have saved my life, but you did not save me. What fate might we have had if you hadn’t championed my cause? If you hadn’t become a martyr? If we stayed in Dahlgren, you could have found us a new home. The Bothwicks would have raised me as their own daughter. I would have carried wounds, but perhaps I would have known happiness again. Eventually. I could have been the wife of a farmer. I would have spun wool, pulled weeds, cooked turnips, raised children. I would have been strong for my family. I would have fought against wolves and thieves. Neighbors would say, She got that strength from the hardships of her youth. I could have lived a small, quiet life. But you changed all that. I’m not an innocent maid anymore. You hardened and hammered me into a new thing. I know too much. I’ve seen too much. And now I’ve killed.”
Modina paused and glanced up at the sky. There were only a few clouds on the field of blue, the kind of clear blue seen only on a crisp winter day.
“Perhaps the two paths really aren’t so different. Ethelred was just a wolf who walked like a man, and the empire is my family now.”
Placing a hand on the grave, she softly said, “I forgive you.” Then Modina stood and walked away, leaving behind the mound with the marker bearing the name Deacon Tomas.
The candles had burned down to nubs and still they were not through the list. Amilia’s eyes drooped and she fought the urge to lay her head down on the desk. She sat wrapped in a blanket with part of it made into a hood.