Astegal’s mark etched in her flesh.
Begging me to cut it out of her.
“He did,” she said simply. “And I remembered.” Sidonie fell silent. The hall was so quiet, the only sound was that of Lady Denise Grosmaine’s, the Secretary of the Presence, quill scratching softly against paper, recording our history.
“We made a plan.” I took up the story. “A desperate plan.”
I told them how Sidonie had tricked Bodeshmun. How I’d killed him, how I’d found the talisman on him. Our harrowing escape, our flight on Captain Deimos’ ship. The pursuit. Our fiery entrance into the harbor of Amílcar.
When I grew hoarse, Sidonie resumed the tale. Back and forth we traded it. Our negotiations with the council in Amílcar, our escape from the besieged city. The Euskerri’s ambush of the Amazigh, the bargain on which the Euskerri insisted. The return to Amílcar and the terrible battle outside its walls. The bloody, costly victory.
Astegal’s capture.
Astegal’s death.
Here and there I saw nods. Kratos had told parts of the story in the Square and some had heard bits and pieces of it. We told the whole of it. Sidonie and I wove the story between us, spinning it with our voices. My weariness vanished as I watched all those faces hanging on our words. We gave them the story as a gift. Its origins reached back into the past. A traitoress had given birth to a boy raised to believe himself a goat-herding orphan; two heroes of the realm had rescued a stolen boy and taught him to be good. The rulers of two nations had given birth to two girls and instilled ideals of valor and justice in them.
And it reached back farther into the tales of those who had shaped them: Anafiel Delaunay, Phèdre’s mentor and patron. A grandfather I’d never known whose vicious charm had shaped my mother’s youth. On and on it spiraled, backward into the mists of time.
But it would go forward, too. I thought of the words I’d spoken to the injured young noblewoman today. The story would go on and on. One day, Sidonie’s and my great-grandchildren would stand in the Hall of Portraits, holding their own children’s hands. They would point to our likenesses and tell our story.
These were your great-great-grandparents . . .
And they would live tales of their own, spinning it ever farther into the future. On and on without end.
My voice faltered and ran dry. I’d reached the present. The balance of our story was yet to be written.
In the silence that followed, no one spoke. Phèdre was the first to move. She came forward, her eyes shining with too many emotions to name. It didn’t feel right to be raised on the dais, so I stepped down to her level, then helped Sidonie down beside me. Phèdre embraced us both in wordless gratitude.
They all came forward then—Drustan and Ysandre, Joscelin. Ghislain nó Trevalion. All the hundreds of peers and citizens and soldiers packed into the hall. They embraced us and they embraced one another. Raul L’Envers y Aragon was there, his face streaming with tears. His wife, Colette, whom I’d known since I was a youth; her brother, Julian, unfamiliar in an officer’s livery. Mavros. Courtiers and priests and chambermaids, all mingling together. Kratos, a limping hero.
I embraced them all—I, who had once been a damaged, brooding boy reluctant to be touched. I took them into my heart and held them there.
And through it all, I felt the lingering echo of the presence of Blessed Elua and his Companions—a promise of hope, a promise of healing, a promise of happiness. And always, I felt Sidonie’s presence, as sure and unfailing as sunlight, her heart bound to mine by a golden cord.
How long it lasted, I couldn’t say. Three hours, four . . . the moment stretched, endless and infinite.
It was what was needful.
It lasted as long as it lasted.
Slowly, slowly, it moved onward. The throng began to thin. They took our story and our blessing and carried it out into the City. The Queen’s Couriers took Sidonie’s proclamation and rode forth to announce in every quarter that Carthage’s spell was broken and the realm was at peace.
In the streets, strangers embraced and wept.
Poets in their chambers began to scribble notes.
The Secretary of the Presence’s assistants began to transcribe copies of her record, preparing to send them throughout the realm.
In the nearly empty hall, I sat on the edge of the dais and sighed. Sidonie stood beside me, resting one hand on my shoulder. Apart from the attendant guards standing at a discreet distance and the hovering chamberlain, almost everyone had left. Only those who loved us best remained.
“So.” Ysandre broke the long, long silence. Her violet eyes were bemused. “Terre d’Ange owes its freedom to Melisande Shahrizai?”
I nodded wearily. “In a sense.”
Joscelin shook his head. “The humors of the gods are perverse.”
“Yes.” Phèdre’s gaze rested on us, on Sidonie and me. “But in the end, they are merciful.”
Mercy.
Just the sound of the word felt like the touch of grace. I closed my eyes, feeling the tide of exhaustion returning to claim me, a spiraling weight dragging me downward. And then I forced them open so I could look at Sidonie. Her face was swimming in my vision and there was a sparkling darkness behind my eyes. I’d slept very little in the past few days.
“What will you?” Drustan asked his daughter.
“Food.” Sidonie’s fingers brushed over the lump on the back of my skull, feather-light. “And sleep.”
“Sleep,” I echoed.
And then the sparkling darkness took me.
I roused briefly, long enough to allow myself to be assisted to a bed. I was vaguely aware of voices. I let them slip away and slid back into the darkness.
I slept and dreamed. I dreamed of blood and war and fire. I dreamed of showers of rose petals falling. I dreamed of Sidonie’s black gaze staring at me through the falling petals, staring with stark fury before a mirror. A vast mirror reflecting the occluded moon. A paring knife. A slippery disk of flesh and blood, more blood. Bodeshmun’s chest heaving futilely, his heels drumming. Swords. Men dying, men crying. Astegal’s head on a stake, his mouth slack. A golden knot, whorls of bark. An emerald splintering. Whorls of dirt and sand, towering high above Elua’s Oak. A gaping maw, horns shiny as mica dipping.
I blinked awake.
Moonlight spilled through the bedchamber, a moon just past fullness.
In the balcony door, Sidonie turned. “Imriel.”
I propped myself on one arm. “Did I miss aught?”
“No.” She came over and ran a lock of my hair through her fingers. “How’s your head? Lelahiah said it was best to let you sleep.”
“Better,” I said. “I think it was mostly exhaustion. I felt like a candle that had been blown out.”
“Can you eat?” she asked. “I’ll send someone to the kitchens.”
“Later.” I folded back the bed-clothes. “Come here.”
Sidonie shed her robe and slid into bed, slid into my arms, warm and naked. Her body pressed against mine. She shivered, a shiver that owed nothing to coldness. “I keep thinking about it. The demon. It bowed to us.”
I tightened my arms around her. “I know. Mayhap even a demon may be grateful.”
“Mayhap,” she murmured.
There was nothing else to say.
We slept.
Eighty-Six
In the days that followed, Terre d’Ange slowly found its bearings.
Sidonie and I met with Ghislain nó Trevalion and determined to dispatch five hundred soldiers throughout the realm, carrying copies of the transcript of our audience to be read in every city and village. She appointed Raul L’Envers y Aragon to head a delegation to Amílcar with a pledge of aid should it be needed. The Siovalese lord Tibault de Toluard volunteered to serve as an ambassador to the fledgling Euskerria, carrying a charter stamped with the royal seal confirming Terre d’Ange’s end of the bargain. Together we drafted letters to D’Angeline ambassadors scattered around the world, assuring them that Terre d’Ange had regained its wits.
Drustan sent his honor guard to Alba carrying a message of peace and apology to his heir Talorcan.
Those members of Parliament who had remained ensconced in the City gathered their retinues and departed for their own estates, in many cases reuniting families torn apart by Carthage’s spell.
The priesthoods of Blessed Elua and his Companions announced that the month of Sidonie’s regency would be a time of contemplation for all. They bade their own members to meditate on the near-tragedy in an effort to discern what divine lessons it might hold.
I kept my word and dispatched a letter to my mother and Ptolemy Solon on Cythera, giving sincere thanks for their aid and including a generous reward for Captain Deimos and his men drawn on the Royal Treasury. It also included an official declaration stamped with the royal seal and signed by the Regent of Terre d’Ange confirming that Melisande Shahrizai de la Courcel’s sentence of execution had been reduced to one of exile.
Across the realm, there was no rejoicing, only quiet relief. In the City, a somber mood prevailed.
It was a strange time. I’d returned to the City and been treated with wary care as an invalid, deranged and harmless. All of that had changed. Without being asked, the folk of the realm treated me as an unofficial co-regent. The captains of the Palace Guard and the City Guard consulted me on their decisions. Claude de Monluc, continuing as the head of Sidonie’s personal guard, regarded my word as interchangeable with hers. And then there was Kratos, our unlikely hero, loyal to us both.
“Gods be thanked,” Sidonie said when I commented on it.
Her workload was heavy. Within two days of the spell’s breaking, petitioners began pouring into the City, heedless of the injunction to spend the time in contemplation. It seemed ten thousand petty disputes had sprung up during the time of madness. The judicial system had fallen apart under the strain. Some suits were unsettled and deserved a fair hearing; others had been settled by Alais in a manner the complainants disliked. Sidonie considered refusing to hear them until the month had passed, but after consulting with Brother Thomas from the Temple of Elua, she decided that the realm would be better served by accepting their petitions and hastening the return to normalcy.
Word from Alais and Barquiel L’Envers had been swift and joyous on the heels of our news. Still, it took time for them to arrive. It was a week before we heard that their entourage had been sighted.
That was a glad day.
They came under the white banner of peace, trebling the number of pennants Sidonie had dispatched. I stood beside Sidonie under the arch that spanned the gates to the City, watching them come. All those white pennants fluttering, as though a flock of white doves hovered above the earth. The walls were lined with watchers.
My throat felt tight.
Aside from the pennants, it wasn’t an impressive entourage. All the outriders wore mismatched livery, much of it threadbare. This was a fragment of the army we would have fought, cobbled together from commonfolk and the scions of the Lesser Houses. Still, their weapons were sturdy and sharp. It would have been a terrible thing.
“Sidonie.” Alais breathed her sister’s name, dismounting before the gates. Barquiel L’Envers followed suit. The man behind them remained in the saddle. I looked up with a shock and met Hyacinthe’s sea-shifting gaze.
The crowd murmured.
Slowly and deliberately, the Lord of the Straits dismounted. He moved as though to offer a bow.
“No, my lord.” Sidonie sank into a curtsy. I bowed low. All our guards dropped to one knee. After a moment, Sidonie rose. “Terre d’Ange gives thanks to her highness Alais de la Courcel and his grace Barquiel L’Envers for serving in her hour of need,” she said in a clear, strong voice. “Let it be noted!”
There were cheers then, for the first time, ragged but heartfelt. L’Envers clasped my hand as Sidonie embraced her sister.
“Imriel,” he said steadily. “Well done.”
I nodded. “And you.”
Hyacinthe.
He was slighter than I remembered; still, there was that mantle of power that hung over him, those dark, roiling eyes that had stared into the prospect of a dreadful forever. He clasped my hand, too.
“Thank you,” I said to him. “Thank you for coming.”
Hyacinthe smiled slightly. “Thank you for rendering my presence unnecessary.” He looked past me, searching.
“She’s not here,” I said, knowing he was looking for Phèdre. “There’s to be a ceremony in Elua’s Square.”
He inclined his head. “Ah.”
I hugged Alais. She felt less frail than she had in Turnone. “I’m so glad,” she whispered. “So very, very glad.”
“So am I, love,” I whispered back.
We mounted and rode to Elua’s Square. It had been left untouched, bereft of its paving stones, the wooden dais still on the dirt beneath the great oak tree. Drustan and Ysandre stood on it. Instead of guards, they were flanked by Priests and Priestesses of Elua, barefoot in blue robes.
There hadn’t been time to issue an announcement, but a sizable crowd had gathered nonetheless. They whispered among themselves as we approached, the rumor of Hyacinthe’s presence spreading.
At a word from Sidonie, our company drew rein and dismounted. Alais and L’Envers approached the dais.
“It is not truly my place to perform this office today,” Ysandre said in a quiet tone. She gazed at her youngest daughter, sorrow etched on her face. “But I think it fitting that you receive this from my hand and no other. It is I who owes you the greatest debt.” She held out a gold medallion strung on green ribbon. “Alais de la Courcel, for your service to the realm, I present you with the Medal of Valor.”