Riv staggered from her bed, the effort almost defeating her, feeling weak as a newborn kitten, but the sight of Garidas dead upon the flagstoned floor, his blood pooling dark and her mam standing over the corpse with her sword in her hand gave Riv the jolt of energy she had been lacking.
She tugged on breeches and boots, a linen shirt, which caught on her back, grating rough as sandpaper, but she managed to get it on.
Aphra ran to Garidas, knelt beside him. She closed his dead, staring eyes. Accusing. Aphra took his hand, smeared with blood, and stared up at her mam.
‘I am sorry,’ Dalmae whispered. Then, louder. ‘Forgive me. I had no choice. I would murder the world to protect you and Riv.’
Aphra was silent, her shoulders shaking, and Riv realized her sister was weeping.
‘Mam, why? What is happening?’ Riv slurred. ‘I don’t understand.’ She was washed with emotions, shock, horror, confusion. Garidas had said so many things, of Kol and Israfil and improper relations.
Aphra and Kol, involved, Garidas said. This is Kol’s doing. He has broken the Way of Elyon, broken the Lore. And Mam has murdered Garidas! A good, kind man; he was offering to help Aphra somehow.
Her mam did not look at her, would not look at her, only continued to wipe blood from her hands on her cloak.
‘Aphra?’ Riv said, but her sister just stared back at her. The stink of blood filled the room, cloying. The weight of it all, murder, Aphra, Kol, right and wrong; her entire life she had been raised to obey the Lore, wanting to do nothing more than obey it.
Purity is removing the ego, Israfil said. What is purity here? What is the right thing to do? She felt breathless, her stomach lurching.
I feel sick. Have to get out of here. And suddenly she knew, she had to see Israfil, to speak to him, to explain Aphra’s innocence before this got any worse.
‘Get Mam out of here,’ she blurted to Aphra as she stumbled past them, out of the door and onto a spiral staircase. Her mam and Aphra called out behind her but she did not stop, staggering down the twisting stairs, bumping and banging into the wall on her way down.
Shouts echoed up to her, the scrape of swords being drawn. She ran on, behind and above her the slap of boots on stone. Riv almost fell through the door that led into her barracks’ feast-hall, saw a sight that made her feel physically sick.
White-Wings, close to blows.
Garidas’ men, a score or two. They had heard his cry, tried to get to him, and been barred by Aphra’s hundred. Some were shouting, pushing, others with drawn blades, ready, threatening, but holding back from that dread step of slaying their own.
Riv staggered a dozen paces, fell against a high-backed chair, her balance feeling all wrong, as if she were trying to navigate the deck of a storm-racked ship. Faces loomed in and out of focus, thought she saw Jost and Vald but was not sure, blinking, shaking her head.
Aphra and Dalmae appeared from the door of the stairwell. They paused, taking in the scene before them.
‘Traitors,’ Dalmae yelled at the top of her voice, ‘Garidas is in league with the Kadoshim.’ There was a moment’s silence, even the few shouting at one another paused, and then chaos exploded. The sound of steel clashing, screams, blood on the barrack’s stone floor.
Riv pushed herself away from the chair and ran through the hall, weaving through a chaotic melee of battle, tripping over fallen bodies, on towards the doorway to the street.
The doors burst open before she reached them, more of Garidas’ men were rushing on, drawing blades. A gust of cold air hit Riv like a slap in the face, rain hitting her as if flung by an angry hand, stinging and refreshing. It helped her to focus for a moment and she ran out into the storm-drenched night, gasping in deep lungfuls of air, feeling as if she were suffocating.
A harnessed wain and half a dozen horses were tethered in the street.
The ones Garidas brought here to help Aphra escape. He was a good man, well intentioned, and Mam just murdered him!
She turned and ran through the empty street, rain sheeting down, the stone dark and slippery. Her back itched and burned, like a scab ready to peel, the sensation of new muscle rippling and bunching disturbing her, and the fog in her mind ebbed and flowed, like the tide rising and falling.
What is wrong with me?
Time enough for that later. First, I must do what is right.
As she turned a corner she heard the sounds of battle spill out from her barrack into the open behind her. Turning down another street, she saw figures, more White-Wings. They were setting oak bars across another barrack’s door. Riv recognized Lorina, captain of the other hundred that had marched to Oriens. More of her White-Wings were standing in the shadows, waiting. As Riv ran past, muffled voices cried out, thuds hammering on the far side of the barrack doors.
This is all Kol. Charming, handsome, fascinating Kol. A storm is coming, he said to Aphra. What side will you choose?
Kol has been arrested, accused of improper relations, Garidas said. She suddenly remembered Kol’s hand upon her cheek, fingers brushing her lips, and she shivered.
He has made the storm, has planned for this. Sent the giants away, has Lorina with him, and my sister. But Garidas said he had Kol in custody, that he is being taken to Israfil.
It was all there, in her mind, what was happening, but like a jigsaw the pieces were separate, were not connecting to make the whole picture clear.
On she ran, towards Israfil’s chambers.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
DREM
It’s Fritha! Tears burned his eyes, the sense of betrayal hot as bile in his throat.
Not abducted by them, or experimented upon and mutilated by them. She is one of them! Has been one of them all along.
I am the world’s greatest fool.
‘It is Fritha,’ he whispered, more in control, now, at least enough to not hurl himself from the roof in an attempt to kill the deceitful, lying witch.
What part did she play in my da’s death? Was it her that hit me? Took the sword? She certainly has it now.
He felt his body tense again, but controlled himself. He was not about to commit suicide when the chance of justice or vengeance was so slim.
Wait, bide my time. Be the hunter Da taught me to be. But know this, Fritha – for what you’ve done, I will kill you.
She raised the black sword.
‘Fuil agus cnámh, rud éigin nua a dhéanamh,’ Gulla cried, voice filling the clearing.
‘Blood and bone, to make something new,’ Sig whispered beside him.
A silence in the clearing.
‘Do it,’ Gulla snarled.
And Fritha cut Gulla’s throat, his two half-breed children stepping forwards and helping her catch the slumping body, heaving it limp onto the table, on top of the still-twitching bat. Fritha sheathed her black sword and reached into some kind of bag at her feet.
‘This cannot be?’ Sig muttered besides Drem. ‘What are they doing?’
Fritha held something aloft, what looked like a severed hand, fingers bunched into a fist, although it was dark and gleaming, and clearly heavy. She brandished it for all to see, a ripple of muttered awe escaping those gathered before her.
‘Fola agus cnámh an Asroth,’ Fritha cried out, and cast whatever it was onto the entwined corpses of Gulla and the bat.