Page 6

Arren tore his gaze from Elo’s and smiled, beatific, but his colours were changeable: bright, then dim; certain, then fearful.

Too many at once. Falsehoods and truths, terrors and hopes.

A man in conflict. The flame in his chest was smaller than it had been when Inara had seen him last, but still, she had the distinct feeling the god who kept him alive was watching her.

Hestra, she greeted that god in her mind.

After a moment, Hestra whispered back to her. I’m not speaking to you, halfling, she said. Half god, half mortal, halfwit.

You have a lot to say for a god who is not speaking.

The fire in the king’s chest flared with annoyance, and Arren’s eyes found Inara. He stared, the corners of his mouth turning down before the briefest moment, and she stared back. Kissen, subtly, moved slightly in front of her, and the king gathered himself, brightening with his smile once more.

‘I come to bless your voyage, my lady,’ he said, turning his voice towards the crowd, loud and charming. ‘And give gratitude for your important endeavour.’ He bowed.

Liar, whispered Skedi, though Inara already knew. However, the baying of the crowd fell to a more respectful murmur as they hushed to listen. He played them well.

‘Our previous entreaties have met with silence,’ Arren continued. ‘I only hope that a demonstration of our unity will convince Irisia to ally with us against the treacherous Talicians.’

Lessa kept her face impassive, and went to her knee. Tarin, Aleda and Lertes followed, then Elogast, but Kissen stayed by Inara and neither of them kneeled.

‘My thanks to you, King Arren,’ said Lessa.

‘It is a long way to come down to the harbour. What shine you show to us, to join us as we make our leave on your behalf.’ Her response, though perfectly courteous, dripped with barbs of reprimand and barely concealed hatred.

Arren’s jaw flexed. ‘Please,’ her voice gentled, like ice meeting spring sunlight. ‘Guard our lands well till my return.’

Arren nodded, satisfied enough. The crowd seemed to hold its breath, and Inara relaxed a little. Perhaps it would be all right. Perhaps they would begin to believe that the rebels and the king would work together.

‘I bring you this,’ said Arren, and nodded at Crolle. She stepped forward holding a small box, her mouth narrow with disapproval, but opened it in front of Lessa to reveal a signet ring set with a red stone, marked with the stag-and-sun of Arren’s insignia.

‘This, Lady Craier, is proof of your collaboration with the king,’ said Crolle, ‘and his trust.’

The Crolle House was one of those loyal to the king, who had refused to align with the rebellion and preserved Arren’s kingship. Tiamh, Yether, Movenna, Elemni, all powerful enough to refuse Lessa and align against her.

‘The stone is new,’ said Arren, ‘but the band belonged to my mother and sister.’ For a moment, his colours again shifted, turning dim and dark.

The set of Lessa’s shoulders softened, only slightly, but Inara frowned.

If he felt pain for the loss of his mother, his sister, he deserved it.

It was nothing to the burn of a hand on Elo’s chest, to the pain of the gods who had lost their faithful, to the people of Craier manor, her people, who had died on his orders.

For a breath, Inara imagined what would happen if Lessa drew her sword and ran him through. How much would it really change?

‘Sunbringer, Sunbringer, Sunbringer.’

The crowd was whispering once more, clapping their hands. A pounding of certainty. A hope. Their colours shining. Green and blue. Faith. Unity.

Lessa reached out her hand and took the ring from the box.

Then she lifted it high, so the crowd could see, and slid it onto her finger.

It seemed such a paltry thing, but a House’s signet was a symbol of their authority, a symbol to be obeyed.

Arren had ceded some of his power to Lessa, in public, where people could see.

The mob let out a roar of approval, the knights and Graiis guards at the dock relaxed.

But then, a hollering cut through the rest of the noise.

Three women ran forward, their hair braided and plaited in crowns around their heads, looped in with deer antlers that had been affixed on bands of woven leather.

Their quick movement surprised the king’s guards, breaking through to the gangplank of the Silverswift in a breathless moment.

‘Traitor!’ they cried. They were dressed in white cotton, blue ribbons tied around their waists that draped down their skirts in ragged stripes. The Graiis guards crowded onto the gangway, drawing their swords.

‘Don’t kill our citizens!’ cried Arren.

They hesitated, and it cost them. One woman put up a wild fight, clawing and biting, while another fell into the water, but the crowd took courage from the breakthrough, all of them now surging up the gangway past the bemused guards, and it turned into a melee.

Two of the women managed to grapple through to the deck, the crowd like a wave shoving up behind them.

‘Sunbringer! Sunbringer!’

The sound of the mob was everywhere, their colour, shaking through Inara’s chest, her breath. She drew an arrow, but where to fire? They didn’t look armed, they didn’t look dangerous. Were they any less innocent than the people of Craier manor?

Elo, at least, had some presence of mind.

He leapt for the gangplank before they were overrun.

He obeyed Arren’s instruction not to kill, but instead tore off his belt so he could hold his scabbarded longsword like a staff.

One hand on the pommel and the other on the sheathed blade, he used it to ram the Sakrean mob back from the deck and down, shoving them overboard where he could.

Lertes and Aleda joined him, defending their ship.

‘Return to shore!’ Elo bellowed. ‘King’s guard, hold off the base!’

‘Protect the king!’ yelled someone else, probably Crolle, who herself had no weapon and had backed up along the deck, standing slack-jawed by the mainmast. Elemni at least had drawn a sword, but was standing in front of Arren, doing little else.

Three of the folk threw themselves at his feet, reaching to touch the king’s tunic as he backed away.

But the women in white had another target. Inara felt a grab on her wrist as Kissen pulled her back, away from the madness, protecting her as she had promised. Tarin was running forward to block the two women as they ran. Not for Arren … for Lessa.

‘For Sunbringer!’

Something glinted in the layers of cloth in their skirts, and Inara saw Kissen’s colours for the briefest moment in yellow, unguarded fear.

‘They’re armed!’

Too late. Kissen ran for them, grabbing one woman by her arm and wrenching her off balance, throwing her into the capstan. Too late, Tarin reached for her own blade, when the attacker she faced already had a knife in her hand.

The barrage of stabs was overwhelming, quick, brutal, effective.

The sharp edge of the blade sliced through Tarin’s arm as she reached for her own, the second and third went into her chest and belly.

She hadn’t been wearing armour, she hadn’t been ready.

She hadn’t been lucky in the three breaths it had taken for the tide to turn.

Inara nocked an arrow as the attacker tried to shove Tarin aside, moving for her final target: Lessa, who had unsheathed her blade. But Tarin, bloodied, had drawn her knife. She would not be shoved aside. Instead, she grabbed the woman’s neck, and held tight.

‘Release me!’ cried the assassin, stabbing Tarin again, again as Skedi flapped his wings in distress.

‘Tarin stop!’ screamed Lessa, as Inara loosed her arrow. It struck the antlered woman in the ribs, and she screamed, but it turned into a gurgle as Tarin drove her dagger up through her throat, and out the back of her neck.

Her death was instant, her colours went out, and the two of them collapsed. Lessa caught Tarin as she fell.

‘Hold!’ Arren cried, finding his voice. ‘My people! Calm yourselves!’

The assassin Kissen had thrown stumbled up, scrabbling for the knife she had dropped. Lessa was holding Tarin. She was vulnerable.

But Kissen was ready. She grabbed the woman by her antlers, her other hand closing on her weapon-hand and twisting it with a crack that made her scream.

‘Traitors must die!’ the woman howled, dropping the knife as Kissen put her in a headlock. ‘We fight for our god with his heart of fire.’ Her voice was lost in the muscle of Kissen’s arm.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ the veiga snarled.

The rest of the would-be mob had backed away from Elo, Lertes and Aleda, perhaps hearing Arren, perhaps realising that something had gone terribly wrong.

‘Tarin,’ Lessa said, her guard gathered in her arms. She had her hand pressed to one of her wounds. Only one. Of so many. Blood poured out around her fingers.

‘It’s nothing, my lady,’ Tarin whispered. The blood was bright. There was too much of it. ‘Just … just a scratch.’ Tarin’s colours were aflame with green in a hundred shades, tinged with yellow. Nettle leaves and apricots. A tear crept out of her eye, inching down towards the deck.

Don’t look, said Skedi to Inara. But she had to look. She couldn’t stop.

‘Stay with me,’ said Lessa. ‘We’ll get a healer. I’ll call a god. We’ve done too much not to survive this.’

Inara looked up at Kissen, who returned helpless eyes, and confirmed what she knew.

No one could survive this. Only the king had survived anything close, and he stood now, hand over his chest as if to protect it.

The fire in the wound that should have killed him. Inara clenched her hand around the bow.

‘Bury me with my mother,’ whispered Tarin at last, so quietly that even Inara could barely hear her. Her colours had softened, fainter yellow, like sunlight through the leaves of orchard trees. ‘Please. Have me buried in the Craier lands.’

‘No,’ said Lessa. She was not crying, but her voice was tight. ‘You’ll live, Tarin. You’re strong enough to live.’

Inara choked on a sob, and anger tightened on her throat, clawing up into her eyes, white hot and blinding. ‘Why?’ she whispered. Then, harder, hotter. ‘Why!’

Why must she lose so much? Why must she feel this pain. She drew another arrow and nocked it, turning the weapon towards the woman Kissen held, who sounded as if she was singing now, murmuring songs under her breath.

‘ Fireheart, Sunbringer

Bravest king of kings ’

This was her fault too. Inara couldn’t kill Arren, but she could kill her. She could have some vengeance.

‘No, Inara!’ said Kissen. Even the wild woman stopped, her eyes staring, hateful. ‘Don’t.’

‘She should be punished!’ said Inara, tears welling hot up behind her eyes.

Tarin was dying. Tarin who made her tea, who reached the high branches.

Tarin who she would never be able to forgive for her lying, to love as a guard, to learn about the life she and her mother had led. ‘They should be punished!’

‘Not by you.’

‘You punish gods!’

‘ Inara,’ said Skedi, small and frightened on her shoulder. ‘Gods can fight back, she can’t. She’s stopped. Kissen stopped her.’

Inara swallowed. She wasn’t only pointing the arrow at the woman; she was pointing it at Kissen who looked … frightened. She dropped her bow, which clattered into the blood, and she fell to her knees beside Tarin. The red between Lessa’s fingers was pulsing more slowly now.

The king was breathing heavily, pale with shock. Elemni had ushered away the citizens who had thrown themselves at his feet, and the knights and Graiis guards were pushing the crowd back, back, away from the ship. In a bare few heartbeats, tragedy had torn through them like a blast of wind.

It was Elo who spoke next.

‘Is this faith, “ Sunbringer” ?’ he said, spitting the epithet, his voice low but enough to be heard over the shouting of the citizens as they were shoved away from the ship, the shaky singing of the would-be assassin that Kissen held tightly. ‘Is this the love you wanted so badly?’

Arren didn’t answer.

This couldn’t be faith. This bloody, frightening, appalling thing. This thing that washed decks with blood and killed good women who missed their home.

Inara was too angry to speak. She held Tarin’s hand as she choked out her last breaths and died on the deck of her lady’s ship. Those colours, so intense and beautiful, winked out.

Then, Inara heard the voice of Arren’s god, Hestra, sidling into her mind.

Now you know how hopes are broken.