Page 14 of Among the Burning Flowers (The Roots of Chaos #3)

brYGSTAD

FREE STATE OF MENTENDON

CE 1004

looked at the human skull on the table. It had been charred so badly that it was black all the way through. A grizzled Inysh mercenary stood before him, ashen and wayworn.

‘I am sorry for our failure, Your Highness,’ she said. ‘We found the Pass of the Imperator. It was a hard climb, but we entered Yscalin and proceeded towards Cárscaro. Before we could reach it, we came under attack by all manner of unholy beasts. I was the only survivor.’

The skull seemed to stare in accusation.

‘How?’ asked the mercenary. ‘How did you live?’

‘I killed Draconic sleepers for a living before I came here. I knew their weak points,’ she said, ‘but there were so many. They overwhelmed us. It felt … like stepping into the Grief.’

It was all true, then. All the things the intelligencers had reported.

‘After the creatures had left,’ the mercenary said, ‘I pressed on for about two miles. I wanted to finish our task, to reach Cárscaro, but you need send no more of us, Your Highness. The Pass of the Imperator is blocked. A rockfall, from the looks of it. I do not know if the Ersyri path is clear. Only that there is no longer any way from Yscalin to Mentendon.’

closed his eyes. His map was very old, but it had been his one and only hope.

‘You have my gratitude for trying,’ he said. ‘And you will receive thrice the pay I offered you.’

The mercenary nodded, but her face was drawn. She never took her dark eyes off the skull.

‘I couldn’t find any of the others,’ she said. ‘By the time I returned to the place we were attacked, the creatures had taken their bones.’

‘Their deaths honoured the Knight of Courage. I will pray for their safe deliverance to Halgalant,’ said. ‘Their families will be compensated.’ He gestured to the skull. ‘Take this to the High Sanctuary of Brygstad to be interred in the charnel garden. Tell them I sent you.’

‘Thank you, Prince .’

She took the skull and left. lowered his head into his hands.

For months, he had tried everything he could imagine to extract Marosa from Cárscaro. The first and second groups of mercenaries had not been able to find the Pass of the Imperator. The third had vanished altogether. had organised search parties to no avail.

During the winter, he had not been able to risk sending more, given the snow in the Spindles. A fourth group had found no trace of the third, but turned back in fear when a quake shook the mountains. Now this fifth group had been killed, he knew what had befallen the others.

‘No more,’ he said softly. ‘No more.’

****

He stood before his aunt that night, in the candlelight of her Privy Chamber. Liuthe did not chastise him, but he knew, from her tired expression, that she never expected his plans to succeed.

‘You must request an annulment from Queen Sabran,’ she told him in an undertone. ‘It is only a matter of time until she declares holy war. Yscalin can offer us no more protection. And we cannot have the Hróthi using your betrothal to tarnish us by association.’

‘There must be another way to Marosa. We could tell her uncle about the Pass of the Imperator.’

‘No, . That would be too far,’ Liuthe said. ‘We have no quarrel with the South, but informing the Ersyris of a vulnerability in Cárscaro would betray the Chainmail of Virtudom.’

‘Yscalin is no longer part of Virtudom.’

‘Its people still deserve our fellowship,’ she said. The fire crackled. ‘Only a few of our intelligencers have been able to return. They tell me the wyverns are in every city, watching the people, spreading the Draconic plague, killing anyone who tries to leave. And you know as well as I do that Cárscaro is impossible to approach unseen.’

looked away, his jaw working.

‘Why is this happening?’ he said. ‘Why are they trying to build a kingdom of their own?’

‘The wyrms are likely weak from centuries of slumber. This must be their way of establishing a haven,’ Liuthe said. ‘Perhaps even a breeding ground for more Draconic things.’

‘This is the beginning of the end, then.’

‘That is not like you, . You are the most devout and hopeful of us all, and you must remain so, regardless of your grief.’

lifted his gaze. Liuthe returned it, as steely as ever.

‘I will send a bird to Ascalon,’ said. ‘But as long as I live, I will never believe Marosa Vetalda is a willing servant of the Nameless One. I believe that we are abandoning her to her doom, and that I am failing her by ending this betrothal. The Saint will punish me for it.’

Liuthe gave him a sad, tender look.

‘You are a kind young man, . You always were,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it pains me that you must rule.’ She sank deeper into her seat. ‘Leovart will die very soon. I imagine I will follow in due course.’

‘You might yet live for many years, Aunt.’

‘The sweating sickness never did release its grip upon my bones.’ She cast a weary look towards the nearest portrait. ‘And … I miss Edvart and Lesken. I am ready to join them.’

looked up at the portrait of his uncle, red-haired and bearded, with a small girl in his arms. Edvart the Second, the Laughing Prince. The man who was supposed to rule for decades.

‘When we are gone,’ Liuthe said, ‘you will be the head of the House of Lievelyn, and you must be prepared to make the hardest decisions of your life. We Ments have survived a great deal. The Northerners drove us out first, based on naught but superstition. The Dreadmount forced us from Gulthaga, the flood from Thisunath, and the wyrms from Carmentum, but each time, we not only survived, but triumphed. When our ancestor Ebanth – displaced and alone – was shipwrecked on the locked isle of Seiiki, she did not accept her execution. What did she do instead?’

‘She convinced the First Warlord to listen to her,’ said, ‘and together, they struck a bargain. Only the Ments could trade in Seiiki, though all other foreigners had been exiled.’

‘And what did her descendant do a century later?’

‘Aunt.’

‘Tell me, .’

He had learned all of this in his youth from his tutors. His mother had told it to him before he fell asleep. The origins of Mentendon, from the snows of the North to the silver swan.

He was not a boy any more, but he did love his aunt.

‘Kathel Lievelyn was her descendant,’ he said quietly. ‘She sailed to the West and petitioned for Mentish independence from the iron grip of Hróth. So began the Mentish Defiance.’ Liuthe nodded. ‘At last, Sabran the Eighth agreed that the stewardship had gone on for too long. She ordered the Queen of Hróth to withdraw her forces and granted the Ments the right to rule ourselves, so long as we retained a monarchy and remained true to the Saint.’

‘And so we have,’ Liuthe said. ‘You think I treat you like a child by asking you to recite a story. But this is a dangerous world for us Ments, no matter if there are wyrms in the sky, or conquerors on the waves, and the story of us – the story of Mentendon – is the very foundation of our dynasty. You must tell your own subjects. You must remind your sisters. You must teach your own children, whenever they come. And they will come, . One day.’

wished he could believe her. Until that day, he would pretend.

‘I hope that I will be a worthy storyteller,’ he said. ‘And honour you, Aunt. In all that I do.’

****

He walked the corridors in his bedgown, watched by concerned servants. His chest was tight, and cold sweat beaded on his face.

The mountain pass had been his only hope. Liuthe was right. Cárscaro was impregnable on the western side, especially with wyverns on the wing. He could not order thousands of Mentish soldiers to walk into the jaws of certain death. Neither could he go alone. Even though he was training with a sword, hoping to master the skills that befitted a monarch, he was no fighter. For all his bold talk before his family all those months ago, he no longer had any confidence in his own ability to reach Cárscaro.

The House of Lievelyn had to come first. He could not plunge his family into mourning yet again. Sorrow had eaten away at his aunt; he would not let it kill his sisters.

He reached the Marble Court, where he sat and gazed at the stars. Marosa knew a great deal about astronomy, having lived in a tower all her life. The Favour twinkled above the palace, mocking him with its brightness. That was the constellation that Ments hoped to see on the night of their marriage, for it was a sign of approval from the Knight of Fellowship.

Ermuna came to join him. From the ink on her fingers, she had been studying.

‘I know you spoke to Aunt Liuthe,’ she said. ‘She wants you to annul the betrothal.’ When he nodded, she laid a hand on his. ‘I am so sorry, .’

nodded again. He felt as if a fire had burned him through, leaving only ash behind.

‘The Yscali alliance was meant to protect us,’ Ermuna said. ‘Assuming a High Western does not destroy us all, you must still wed, to strengthen our dynasty. And there is one obvious match.’

‘Who?’

‘Queen Sabran. If you had a child with her, the next Queen of Inys would have Lievelyn blood. The Vatten would be pacified once and for all. You know this as well as I do, .’

‘I thought Queen Sabran was attached to Lord Arteloth Beck. Granduncle says it is common knowledge.’

‘Granduncle needed an excuse for why Queen Sabran turned down his suit,’ Ermuna said. ‘In truth, it is gossip at best, an inconvenience at worst. Inys stands to gain far more from a foreign alliance. Sabran needs to demonstrate the strength of Virtudom. We can fill the yawning gap that Yscalin has left in the Chainmail.’ She leaned closer to him. ‘The first Mentish prince consort to a Berethnet queen. Imagine our security.’

turned the thought over in his mind. In truth, he had never considered proposing to Sabran, assuming the Berethnets would only want to marry their older allies.

But Ermuna was right. Now Yscalin had fallen, Mentendon had a chance to rise.

‘Not yet,’ he said, nonetheless. ‘I cannot … move on so quickly, Erma. I cared for Marosa, even if I never had a chance to fall in love with her. I have lost the future I dreamed of having.’

‘That is grief,’ Ermuna said, ‘and it is the luxury of men, not monarchs. The suit will be strongest when you are High Prince, but that will be very soon. Granduncle will not recover from this illness.’

‘Ermuna.’

‘I sound cruel. But it is true, . His physicians think he has days, not weeks.’ Ermuna tightened her grasp. ‘Mourn your betrothal to Marosa for as long as it takes him to die, then write to Queen Sabran. Make her an offer before she accepts a suit from Hróth. You are the most eligible prince in Virtudom.’

She really was like steel, unbending.

‘I vow to you that I will give it thought as soon as Granduncle passes,’ said, ‘but too quick an offer will make me appear inconstant and cold. Let us allow the dust to settle.’

Ermuna did not reply, but she stayed.

****

The next day, walked in silence to the Royal Aviary, where several piebald doves fluttered and cooed. He chose the one with the delicate gold collar, showing it knew how to fly to Ascalon.

He looked down at the letter. A request for an annulment, addressed to Queen Sabran, the highest authority in Virtudom. His suit would come later, when his family decided he had grieved Marosa for long enough.

The dove perched calmly on his wrist. As he tucked his letter into the holder on its foot, he thought once more of the princess in the tower, whose soul had touched his for twelve precious days. She might already be dead. Pushing down a surge of grief, he opened the shutters with one hand and let the dove go. It swept over the courtyard, and then into the sky.

It was done, and it could not be undone.

Like a sleepwalker, he went to the Privy Sanctuary. He could not help Marosa – a failing for which he could never forgive himself – but he could pray for her safety and deliverance.

As he knelt before the statues, he found the plea refused to come. The Saint and his Holy Retinue, for all their strength in life, no longer held any power in Yscalin. They might not be able to see Marosa, trapped as she was in the shadow of evil.

knelt for some time, thinking.

Long before the Midwinter Flood – the event that preceded their forced conversion – the Ments had followed a far older religion. It posited a doomed love between the Smith of the Earth and the Smith of the Heavens, and their eternal battle for dominance. The Smith of the Earth had dwelled in a great forge beneath the Dreadmount, and when he was angry, the volcano rumbled.

Perhaps the Smith of the Earth was the same god the Yscals had once worshipped, known by a different name. But Yscalin no longer needed fire. Only the Smith of the Heavens – the silver queen of the sky – might save them.

‘Hail, Smith of the Heavens,’ said, his voice soft. ‘If she is still alive, protect her.’

He made the sign of the sword, to cleanse his own vice, and walked away.