But with those trappings of royalty came the responsibilities of etiquette. Amanvah and Sikvah might be enemies, but they were princesses in their own right, blood of the Krasian leader. Their station demanded nothing less than proper royal treatment, including access to Thamos’ tent and his every courtesy. The boy set to serve them was of noble birth, and he scurried to and fro in terror as Sikvah snapped orders at him and cursed his slowness. Amanvah knelt silently beside her, head cocked to one side.
Listening to Rojer.
The thought galled Leesha. Amanvah had tried to murder her, yet still Rojer trusted her with everything that was happening, while Leesha and Thamos were left in the dark. Wives or no, Leesha had been with him every day for almost two years. How could he trust them more than her?
I should have warded Gared’s helmet the same way and not told him, she thought, and immediately felt a pang of guilt. What right did she have to invade even Gared’s privacy that way?
No. She shook her head. That’s the dama’ting way. I’d sooner become Elona than take up their methods.
But Creator, how she wished she could hear what was happening!
Suddenly Amanvah hissed and began speaking quickly in Krasian, many of the words curses. She spoke far too quickly for Leesha to follow, but the anger in her tone was clear, with no dama’ting artifice. Sikvah looked at her in shock as Amanvah got to her feet, pacing back and forth as the string of epithets continued.
Leesha could bear it no longer. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
Amanvah looked at her for a moment, considering her words. ‘My honoured husband is brave, but a fool.’
‘We all have a little of each in us, at times,’ Leesha said.
Amanvah nodded, drawing a steadying breath as her dama’ting calm returned. ‘It is inevera.’
‘Is he all right?’ Leesha said.
Amanvah whisked a hand. ‘For now. He has volunteered to go into the night.’
‘Why?’ Leesha asked. That didn’t sound like the Rojer she knew.
‘They apparently believe the demons will sense the Par’chin’s power if he leaves the greatward,’ Amanvah said. ‘And so the Par’chin has sent my honoured husband, the oaf Gared, and his own Jiwah Ka out into the night to do his scouting.’ One of Amanvah’s eyebrows curled, but with her veil in place Leesha could not tell what the gesture signified. ‘His very name means bravery, but he commands others to leave the greatward when he fears to do so himself. He is a coward after all.’
‘And what does that make me, waiting here in the centre?’ Thamos demanded. All eyes turned to the count, and Leesha could see the tension in his face. Leesha remembered how he had been abed that first night, and the tales Darsy had told of the count’s fear of demons, and how his need to conquer that fear led to erratic acts of bravery. He was terrified of being labelled a coward and losing the respect of his people. ‘A leader must be free to direct his forces.’
Amanvah snorted, sparing him a dismissive glance. ‘My holy father does not sit on his throne after the sun sets, and he is the greatest leader the world has ever seen. You are chin, and your cowardice is expected, but the Par’chin was said to be different.’
Thamos looked enraged, what little temper was left to him quickly evaporating. In a moment, he would begin shouting, and it would go poorly for everyone.
Leesha stepped between them, locking stares with Amanvah. ‘With respect, Amanvah, I have seen your honoured father send men, even his own sons, far into the night to do his scouting. I know you worry for your husband, but Rojer has gone into the night hundreds of times. He’ll be all right.’
‘How can you claim to know what even the dice will not say?’ Amanvah asked.
‘I can’t,’ Leesha admitted. ‘But I have faith.’
Amanvah blinked, then nodded. ‘It is inevera.’ She breathed to calm herself, moving back to her corner of the tent and kneeling once again in meditation as she listened.
Rojer held his fiddle and bow in his good left hand as they stepped out into the naked night, trusting in the cloaks to protect them. His right hand he kept free. Even with just three fingers, he could flick a warded knife into it and throw in seconds.
‘I’ll lead,’ Renna said. ‘Used to seeing in the dark.’ Neither Rojer nor Gared cared to argue. He was still adjusting to the mask Amanvah had given him. He could see well enough that he wasn’t apt to run into anything or miss a passing demon, but the swirls of coloured magic clinging to everything were distracting and confusing, making him feel as unsure as if in a thick morning fog.
As Renna moved ahead, right at the edge of their wardsight, Rojer turned to Gared. ‘You’re right I took you for granted. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own drama I forget I’m not the only one in the play.’
Gared grunted. ‘It’s a fallen tree. No point climbing it.’
Rojer turned to face him. ‘I know, I just—’
‘We’re out in the naked night, Rojer,’ Gared cut in, ‘and I feel like I’m caught inside a ripping rainbow cloud. Ent mad at you any more. Now eyes in front.’
Rojer nodded, turning his gaze this way and that, but as he did, something unclenched inside him. One less thing to fret over. Now all I need to worry about is being eaten by demons.
The walk was agonizingly slow. Leesha’s Cloaks of Unsight had never failed, but needed to be wrapped close around the wearer, and they could not move too quickly. Rojer and Renna were more practised, setting the pace for Gared.
Just beyond the tree line they began to see signs of the flame demons’ play: blackened trunks and scorched ground that had once been the fertile forest bed. Their boots and the hems of their cloaks became black with ash.
Ahead, the sounds of ongoing destruction were like nothing Rojer had ever heard. Instinct screamed at him to turn and run in the other direction, but he steeled himself and kept putting one foot in front of the other as they picked their way through the trees.
They did not have to go far. The woods ended abruptly, violently, in a place of utter devastation. All the thundersticks Leesha had ever made could not have done a fraction of the damage. The ground was blackened and blasted, with great piles of loose soil next to huge gaping holes where whole trees and heavy stones had been torn free.
There was something repellent about the place. A wrongness Rojer could sense in every fibre of his body. They did not belong here.
Field demons, sleek and low to the ground, prowled the area, climbing atop the piles and sniffing the air. Above, wind demons circled.
Renna drifted back to them. ‘Too many places for demons to hide. We stay close from here on.’
Rojer and Gared nodded, the three of them moving deeper into the destruction. Huge piles of stones stood twenty feet high, as did stacks of trees. Rojer looked at one of the stone piles, then back the way they had come. ‘How far do you think a rock demon could throw one of those?’
Gared considered the pile, then he, too, glanced back. ‘A big one? Too far for my liking.’
‘They’re stockpiling,’ Rojer said. ‘We should go back and—’
‘Not yet,’ Renna interrupted. ‘If that’s all they’re doing, where are all the rock and wood demons?’