Interlude: Daughter of Shrikes

Interlude: Daughter of Shrikes

The days after Rose Malin burned passed in a mad rush. All the great and mighty lords of the Accorded Realms gathered, with all their kings and all their kings’ men, and they rushed about like stunted cockatrices with their heads lopped off.

Emma almost found it amusing. No, she did find it amusing, though no one else seemed to enjoy the joke quite so much as her.

Lot of trouble over some bugger priests, she thought as her wandering steps brought her to an upper terrace of the Fulgurkeep. Ancient pillars held up the roof above her, connected to a short wall on one side over which the great fortress dropped steeply down to lower parapets and crashing waves below.

Her gaze went out over the city, where smoke still rose here and there. Priory sympathizers had been rioting, blaming the Houses for the murder of Horace Laudner, Grand Prior of the Arda. Two weeks had passed since the old power monger’s death, and the guard were just starting to get things under control.

Emma sniffed at the scene. Of course, he goes and makes such a fuss and the nobility still gets most of the credit.

And what did he get? Work. Always more work. And he seemed content with it, the masochistic brute.

Well, he’s not so grumpy nowadays. I suppose I have that blood wench to thank for that. Emma’s lip turned up in a self amused smirk as she ran her fingers along the short wall, which rose just above waist height to her.

“It amuses you?”

The voice was cold, angry. Emma would know that self righteous quiver anywhere. She kept the smile and paused, letting her fingers linger on the edge of a pillar.

“It does, in fact.” Emma turned, seeing a young woman only a year or two older than her standing a ways down the hall. Lisette had changed dramatically since she’d quit the priorguard. She wore a yellow cloak over white robes now, the garments of a Synodite adept — the arbiters of the Aureate Church, rather than the shadowy kidnappers and torturers of the Priory.

“People are dying down there,” Lisette said, her brow furrowed over sky blue eyes. “You shouldn’t laugh at them.”

“They are dying down there, yes.” Emma waved a dismissive hand at the lagoon city. “And I am so very far up here. Perhaps I would be more aggrieved if I could smell the violence. But I find the air quite pleasant high up, don’t you?”

She grinned. The priestess was not amused.

“Does it please you to play at being wicked?” Lisette asked.

Emma adopted a frown, while inside her smile widened. “Play? Why, my dear girl, haven’t you heard? I am the official squire of the Fell Headsman himself! I have an image to uphold, for both of us.”

Lisette let out an angry breath through her nostrils, adjusting the mantled yellow cloak she wore. She didn’t seem altogether comfortable in it, and it had so many flappy bits. It almost seemed like the sort of thing that might be caught by a sudden squall, carrying the poor cleric off into the gray skyline above Garihelm like a flustered yellow bird.

“None of this is funny,” Lisette snapped. Emma realized she’d been smiling again, though not at what the cleric believed. “You think he enjoys this? That he wanted it?”

Emma shrugged and turned, beginning to make her way along the pillars again. “I don’t know. You were there the night he massacred the Priory, not I. I was babysitting.”

She still hadn’t forgiven him for that. He’d promised her they would fight side by side, after that fiasco following their arrival in the capital. Then he’d gone off on his own again. Emma had understood the reasons, of course, but that didn’t mean it did not irk her.

Still, she couldn’t complain at the results. It had been touch and go there for a bit, but now...

She was so very high up.

Emma sighed as she heard all the rustling cloth the cleric had draped herself in move.

“I still don’t understand your role in all of this,” Lisette said as she began to follow, keeping a distance behind. “I know you are highborn. It’s obvious by the way you talk, and how you... treat people. Is this all a game to you? A way to gain power?”

The bloody clericon still hadn’t gotten over their conversation in Myrr Arthor, the great cathedral at the center of the Bell Ward. Emma could see it even from here, its high spires rising over the bay on a tall hill, almost rivaling the island palace upon whose walls she stood.

Almost. The Church was an institute of scribes and preachers. All the power lay with the Houses, with the ancient bloodlines of warlords and knights who’d conquered this land long centuries ago. Emma hadn’t forgotten it, and the Priory had been reminded of it.

“Power, hm?” Emma said in a ponderous tone. “Everything seems to turn on its axis, don’t you think?”

Yes, she thought darkly. Had things gone different, I’d be in Venturmoor and married, with very different prospects of advancement ahead of me.

This was more dangerous, but far more fun. The opportunities were delicious.

Folding her hands behind her back, Emma did a hop-skip forward as she turned sidelong to the cleric, maintaining her condescending smile. “Being honest with you, Lis... can I call you Lis?”

“No.”

“Right. Well, Lizzie, you’re quite right about one thing.”

Lisette’s pressed lips grew even thinner. Emma continued without losing her faint smile.

“This outcome is quite pleasing to me. After all, I’ve found myself with far more opportunities than even a month ago. Living beneath everyone’s notice had its perks, but...”

Emma spread her hands in a shrug. “Now I don’t need to be quite so... quiet.”

She turned to the end of the hall again. She could practically feel Lisette’s angry blue stare boring a hole into the back of her neck. Again, she sighed. “Did you need to tell me something, or are you just planning to follow me around? Make certain I don’t do anything terribly villainous.”

Emma heard Lisette come to a stop. She did as well, waiting, her head bowed and her eyes closed. Never let them see what you’re truly feeling. Be a wall upon which anger and love break, and you shall be truly mighty.

She still remembered her grandmother’s lessons.

Though she didn’t see it, Emma knew Lisette drew herself up in prim and proper fashion by the rustling of cloth.

“Her Grace would like to deliver a message to your master.”

Emma’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh?” She said, struggling to maintain her blasé tone. The Empress had been ignoring them ever since the trial, partly for political reasons but mostly for deeply personal ones, so much as Emma understood.

The empty darkness of the onsolain’s eyes, though they had no pupil or iris to indicate where they looked, fell on Emma. She could feel that focused attention, like a pressure against her temples. The faint, serene smile ancient masons had carved into the angel statue’s lips was also very familiar.

“I am pleased,” Thorned Nath, Angel of the Briar, said from within the statue. “Cleaving to the Alder Knight’s side has done you well, my godchild.”

Swallowing, her throat feeling very dry, Emma nodded. “Thank you, godmother. I do not regret the decision.”

“Oh?” Nath chuckled. “I wonder if he would be pleased to hear it. In any case, I wished to congratulate you on your ascension. With the Headsman of Seydis now a recognized peer of the Accorded Realms, your own prospects have been elevated.”

Greatly daring, Emma let a bit of irony slip into her voice. “And yours as well, godmother?”

“Ah! My dear heart. You know me well.”

The rush of guilty excitement Emma always felt when her dark patron spoke to her became tempered by a more cautious emotion. Trepidation.

“Do...” She swallowed again. “Do you have some task for me?”

“I am not your mistress!” Nath laughed, which was very unsettling from those stony, still lips, which did not move. “I may be quite occupied soon, as will all my brethren. Powers move in the land, my sweetling, and I am afraid what aid we might give to our chosen will become quite... distant. Your mentor will not be able to pull a stunt like he did before the iron king and be so lucky again, I think.”

Emma nodded. “I will be cautious.”

“I doubt it.” Nath fell quiet a moment, and Emma got the sense the spirit’s attention strayed from her.

Then, in a less whimsical tone, Nath spoke again. “You are in much danger, my godchild. All this realm is. I can speak little of it, for it is all very tangled.”

Emma tried for humor. “Do you not prefer things that way, godmother?”

“...I much prefer when I have tied the bramble vines myself,” Nath admitted. “But know this — it is not only Alken Hewer’s enemies you must fear. As you gain power, and a name of your own, there are still those who have not forgotten your true name.”

Emma felt a chill. “You mean the Carreons?”

“The Carreons were a High House,” Nath said. “Their power reached far, and they had many loyal vassals. Even after a century of decline, some still cleave to their shadow. Step lightly, and use what tools you may. The tarnished knight is right in this, at least. Whether you desire power or no, you will need it to survive and protect what belongs to you. Do not spurn it.”

Once again, Emma’s eyes drifted to the knights. Nath, who had been watching her since she was a child, knew her mind.

“You do not need to feel love to wield it. It can be a mighty weapon. Among the most keen.”

Emma frowned. “You believe I should use the Hunting boy? Take advantage of his feelings for me?”

“It would be prudent. Can you afford to spurn tools? You will be hard pressed to find friends in the Headsman’s shadow. Take his example.”

A cocksure face drifted through Emma’s thoughts. Imperfect, crooked-toothed, with hungry eyes and mussed hair. “I don’t think Alken would appreciate the dhampir being described as a tool,”she noted.

“But she is one! A very useful one, and dangerous. Oh, to have a Child of Ergoth held so close...”

The statue trembled, pieces of it flaking away and falling. Emma felt a chill.

“It remains to be seen whether your master will be wise,” the fallen Onsolain continued, musing. “Perhaps you may guide him to wisdom?”

Emma took a deep breath through her nostrils, steadying her nerves. Keeping her thoughts wrapped in the most haughty voice she could, she nodded. “I shall consider your advice. Thank you, godmother. And I should thank you for before, as well.”

“Hm?” The stone angel let out a sharp sound. More cracks had begun to appear around the eyes, widening them into web-shaped ravines. The dark spirit’s presence was eroding the vessel.

“You saved my guardian’s life,” Emma said. “And likely mine. Not to mention the future I seek. You have my gratitude.”

She turned and waved a dismissive hand. “I really must be going. These chats are always so... pleasant.”

“That’s better!” Nath laughed. “I shall be watching you, child. I have such high hopes.”

When Emma turned, the statue was empty of any dark presence. Most of the head had crumbled away, and briar vines — grown up from some lower garden of the tiered castle over weeks of neglect — ate through it. How had she not noticed that before?

“Tools, is it?” Emma glanced at the knights again. Such an ugly word. Alken would much prefer the term friends. Then again, all his friends seemed prone to betraying him.

Emma had never had any friends. Everyone had been too scared of her growing up. When she’d been quite young, and Qoth had been given to her, she’d thought him a friend for a time. That foolishness hadn’t lasted long.

How did she even know what one was? She had enjoyed teasing the choir girl, but she doubted the feeling was mutual. Alken was more like... a very big, very surly brother? And Qoth a willful, murderous cat. He even took the form of one, sometimes.

She would think about it. For the time, though...

Bells began to toll in the city, drawing Emma’s eyes back down to the lagoon. Spread across all its many islands, the city stirred with some intangible but very real quality, a pressure like the approach of a storm.

Her eyes were drawn to one island in particular, where a ring of high walls formed a long, oval pit, a cleft splitting the end which faced the east, where the rising sun would shine through it.

Soon enough, it would be full of roaring crowds, clashing steel, and singing phantasm. The boiling power inside Emma, a legacy as real and deadly as the heirloom sword at her hip, began to stir.

The Emperor’s tournament started soon.