When the binding had been complete, I collapsed to one knee. My vision swam, split, tilted — I had to suppress the urge to vomit.
Lost too much damn blood.
I felt a strong hand grasp me under one arm. Kross. He helped lift me, and after a short time I managed to get the world back in one piece. A silence followed as we stared at the gnarled oak, and the black-armored warrior fused to its trunk.
“That…” The knight-exorcist stared in wonder at the tree, breaking the quiet. “What is that?”
“Malison Oak,” I said, wincing as I made the mistake of flexing the fingers of my right hand. “The elves use them in their sanctuaries to trap curses. This one was restructured into a weapon, given a binding rite.”
“A dark thing,” Kross noted.
Before I could answer, a furious yell drew my attention. I realized the rest of the battle had ended as well — I’d almost forgotten there had been a small war around us. When he’d fallen into dormancy, Orley’s hellhounds and infernal steed had melted into tar, which pooled in evil, hissing little puddles here and there.
Nearly half of Brenner Hunting’s retinue had been slaughtered before I’d managed to subdue the Scorchknight. More were wounded. The mauled, burned corpses of soldiers and war chimera still smoked where they lay. Others had been badly wounded, some mortally, and their cries mixed with a fresh batch of falling snow. A terrible blow to the fiefdom’s martial strength.
My eyes went to Lord Hunting himself. Brenner dismounted his kynedeer in a rush, all but sprinting to the body of his fallen son. I cannot describe the look on his face — a father’s grief. That says enough. He dropped to his knees, heedless of his armor, and let out an almost animal sound as he stared at the face of his son. I could not see it from a distance, still helmed as it was, but the boy was too still. Orley’s spear remained embedded in his chest, just below the throat.
I could have saved him. I’d been close enough to attack Orley in that moment. Only, it would have stalled my binding, and possibly lost us the battle.
Possibly. I clenched my jaw and brushed Kross off. “I’m fine,” I told him. I looked for Emma, and found her staring at Brenner and Hendry rather than at her defeated foe. She took a hesitant step forward, swallowed, then started marching toward them.
I followed, but didn’t reach them before what I suspected might happen next came to pass.
Brenner saw Emma approaching and stood, looming to his full towering height. The expression on his face… it went beyond anger.
“You,” he growled, voice low as the thunder of a distant hurricane. “You brought this on us.”
Emma stopped mid-step. “I didn’t—”
“You little witch.” Brenner began to stride towards her. His ursine visage and antlered helm gave him a grim aspect, the overcast sky and snowfall framing his wrath. “Your parents came to me as beggars, and I gave you sanctuary, a place at my table, even offered to make you mine own family. Was it not enough? Is it true after all, that you Carreons are all devils?”
Emma’s face twisted with emotion. She seemed at a loss for words, finding them only with great effort. “I didn’t ask for any of this!”
“You wanted this, didn’t you?” Brenner’s voice had grown hollow. His eyes glazed, as though he didn’t truly see the young woman in front of him. “The Rider hasn’t ever touched you. Even now, when you were within his reach, you don’t have so much as a scratch. He is your creature, isn’t he? And that man…” his eyes went to me, and to the gnarled tree at my back. He bared his teeth. “He is no Glorysworn, just a warlock you brought to help leash your pet.”
Emma hissed in frustration, losing hold on some of her own anger. “That is insane!”
He pointed a trembling finger at the girl. “You— you are a blight on my house.”
“I never asked to be bound to it!” She nearly shouted, taking a step forward.
“So you would see us all slain to free yourself!?” Brenner finally stopped his own advance, towering over the young Carreon. “Wretched, stupid child. We are your only allies.”
“In that,” Emma said coldly. “You are mistaken, my lord.”
Brenner’s face darkened even further, and I saw his fingers tighten on the warhammer he held. Before things could go further, and before Emma’s temper had her revealing more than she should, I stepped forward. “Lady Emma didn’t kill your son, my lord. She is as much a victim in all of this as he was.”
That, I felt certain, was true. Emma might have the potential for brutality, the instinct for it — I’d seen as much in how she fought — but she hadn’t taken any lives, innocent or otherwise. She hadn’t been part of her ancestors’ atrocities, and I refused to believe her blood made her liable for them.
Brenner wheeled on me, and for a moment I thought he’d swing. I had no weapon to defend myself other than my dagger, and I somehow suspected that wouldn’t be of much use.
“MY SON IS DEAD!” he roared.
The surviving knights had begun to gather around us. The archers and lesser soldiers, too, who’d joined the battle from the village once they’d caught up. Though their numbers had been gutted, there were plenty enough to slaughter me and Emma if things came to violence.
I was so tired of things moving to violence. Still, I wouldn’t let them hurt the girl. I squared my jaw and held the nobleman’s gaze.
“Perhaps not.”
All our eyes turned to Ser Renuart Kross. While the argument had been in full swing, he’d moved over to Hendry’s fallen form and knelt. Kross almost blended with the falling snow and ash in his dull armor and gray cloak. He held out a hand, palm hovering over the young lord’s face as though feeling for warmth, or breath.
I saw hope flicker in Brenner’s eyes. “He’s alive?” He spoke in almost a whisper.
“He hasn’t yet been claimed by death, not fully.” Kross’s flinty eyes narrowed. “I will do what I can.” He closed his eyes and began to murmur under his breath. Again, I had the sensation of great wings unfurling into the world. Their touch against my aura was bitterly cold, far more so than the chill of the premature winter, and I shivered.
We all watched, no one daring to break the sudden silence. Brenner had completely forgotten his rage, staring at the kneeling paladin with almost child-like hope, and more than a little fear. I saw several of the men-at-arms murmur prayers under their breath.
Finally, without drama, Kross lifted his eyes to Brenner. “I have…” he seemed to search for words. “Placed him in stasis. He will need a physik. Understand, my lord, he is dead — I only trapped his spirit in him. Either we must revive him using mortal means, or I will have to perform a rite of exorcism, lest he become undead.”
I noticed that an icy sheen had formed over the young man, making him seem slightly blue, like a frozen corpse.
“You are a preost,” Brenner said, again adopting his commanding baritone. “You are authorized to use sacred necromancy. Revive him!”
Ser Kross only shook his head, his expression passive. “I am not permitted such rites, and those are only used for communion in any case. He needs a proper healer. I believe you have a clericon, back at Antlerhall?”
I saw Brenner’s impatience, his fear, urging him to brashness. He mastered himself and nodded. “Yes.” He turned and began barking orders.
Emma stared in silence as Brenner’s men worked, securing the body. Others began to find their mounts, or take saddle if they’d lost theirs in the fighting. I moved to stand at her side.
“Is it done?” She asked, voice hoarse. “Is Jon Orley dead?”
“He died a century ago,” I said honestly. “As for right now…” I sighed. “We’re safe, for a while. And we’re all hurt. We should go with them to Brenner’s hall, get ourselves treated by a real healer and get some rest.”
Her eyes went to my mutilated hand, and she winced. “I didn’t want any of this,” she said again, almost desperate.
“I know,” I said. “We’re alive. Time to take the next step.”
After she’d gone to find her mount, I turned to find Ser Kross staring at the tree.
“How long will that hold him?” He asked.
I followed his eyes. “Not long,” I admitted. “It’s supposed to feed on the blood of its victim to keep the binding powered, but Orley is undead — no blood, least none it can use. Not to mention that he’s goring strong.” I rubbed at the stubble on my jaw with my left hand, wincing again as I pulled at the burns — my entire palm had blistered raw from grabbing the Scorchknight’s weapon. Did I really have to go and injure both my hands?
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“How long?” Kross repeated.
“Few days at most,” I said quietly.
“Then we will need to find another solution.” Kross folded his arms over his breastplate. “This only buys us time.”
I nodded, then frowned as I looked at the knight-exorcist, realizing something.
“What?” Kross asked, noticing my look.
“Your arm,” I said, nodding to his right arm. “It isn’t broken anymore.”
Kross was silent a moment, then shrugged. “My companion healed it during the fight. I only stayed back because I saw your warning, and didn’t want to approach and spoil your spell.”
It made sense. Still, I remembered when he’d healed Emma’s arms — those injuries had been less immediately grievous than a cracked bone, and it had exhausted him. He seemed hardly winded now.
“We should get moving,” I said, ignoring it. “I don’t want to leave Emma alone too long with his lordship, in case he commits to blaming her for all of this.”
“Of course.” Kross dipped into a shallow bow. “I will recommend Lord Brenner leave some guards here to keep an eye on our treebound friend, just in case.”
I nodded, having been about to make the same suggestion. For now, I needed a healer. Useful as my preternatural vitality could be, I literally had holes in me.
“To Antlerhall, then.”
***
The Hunting castle had originally been a mead hall, belonging to one of the clan-fiefdoms who’d populated much of Urn before the great exodus from the West. Over generations it had been steadily converted into a proper castle incorporating both Edaean and native style.
The original structure remained, an enormous longhouse atop a tall hill, fashioned of wood and stone with a steep, tiered roof and pillared entry heavily decorated in bronze reliefs, every inch of stone carved with scenes of the old inhabitants’ history. However, high bastion towers had been added, and a forecastle at the hill’s base. The end result was something out of time, both ancient and new, both melding in a strange, impossible elegance.
Much like House Hunting itself, with its fey steeds and spear-and-bow wielding hunter knights.
I didn’t see much of Brenner after we arrived. A great scurry followed our battered retinue’s arrival at the keep, with servants and soldiers everywhere. I tried to stay out of the way, and to keep Emma in my sights. However, she slipped away from me during the chaos, taken off by some servants to be tended to.
I gave her privacy. Though, I worried about what Brenner might do in his grief and suspicion.
Eventually, a physiker looked at my injuries and I was fed. My hand throbbed with pain. It would take days for those wounds to close, weeks for them to fully heal, even with my magic. I wouldn’t be able to fight until I had the hand back, even with a replacement weapon.
I’d have to hope I wouldn’t need to.
I was allowed to sleep in the feast hall, and I took that as a good sign. In old traditions, allowing guests to sleep under the lord’s own roof, in his place of merriment, is held as a great honor. It didn’t give me much privacy though, and I doubted that to be an accident. More than a few from the battle at Orcswell saw me summon the Malison Oak, and I received many wary, distrustful glances. Perhaps they might have been grateful I’d ended the fight, but my association with Lady Emma poisoned their trust.
Servants took my cloak and armor to be cleaned, and I found a shadowed spot along one of the hall’s walls to get some rest. Exhausted, my mind still churned with the days events and sleep didn’t come quickly. They’d lit a fire in the hall, to stave off the premature cold.
I realized soon enough I couldn’t sleep, and went for a walk. I wandered the winding corridors of the keep. Eventually, perhaps by coincidence, I found a doorway leading into a spacious chamber lit by a constellation of candles, with many alcoves and an open central floor dominated by a basin.
A chapel.
Perhaps on a whim, I went inside. The room wasn’t over large, and mostly empty. A private space for prayer, no doubt, used by the lord and his guests. I saw only one figure seated on one of the circle of pews set along the edges of the central dais.
Emma stared at the basin with unfocused eyes, her hands clasped together more from nerves than for prayer. Her eyes were shadowed with lack of sleep. She wore new clothes — the servants had taken her martial ensemble same as they had mine. They’d given her a white shift and green dress. It was the first time I’d seen her in traditional woman’s clothes. It made her look less haughty, less severe. She’d done her dark hair into a lazy braid.
She was too young for all of this. Then again, I’d been too young to go to war. Had I really been her age when I’d started on this path?
“Stop that.”
I blinked, not realizing she’d been watching me out of the corner of her eye. “Stop what?”
She didn’t scowl or scoff, only met my eyes steadily. “That way you look at me. Like I’m some mirror showing you all your own mistakes. You’re not my father. For one thing, you’re too young to be.”
I sat down on the bench next to hers, so the narrow gap between the two pews separated us. Little more than an arm’s length. “How old do you think I am?”
I could tell the question surprised her, by her silence. “I don’t know… thirty at most?”
I inhaled a long breath. “And I’ll look this young for another thirty, probably. You shouldn’t judge anything with just your eyes — there’s too much phantasm in the world, my lady.”
“You’re just like Nath,” Emma said bitterly. “Always talking in riddles.” This time, she did scoff.
It was the first time she’d named the demigoddess without an honorific. The day must have truly shaken her.
Instead of distracting her from her woes with argument, as she’d probably wanted, I decided to cut to the meat of the matter. “How’s Hendry?”
Emma drew in a sharp breath. I didn’t push, letting her gather her thoughts, consult her own emotions. I knew how tangled they must be.
“Lord Brenner called in a physiker from one of the villages — the same who treated me. He and the castle clericon managed to revive Hendry, but he’s in critical condition. They don’t know if he’ll last the night, much less the week. Ser Kross is with them, doing what he can, but it was a mortal injury. Even Art is not full-proof against death.”
I heard her dress rustle as she shifted. “Orley’s fire turned some of his bones to iron. They say it’s a curse, and that it’s spreading.”
The wound in my own shoulder still burned. My own magic would counteract any curse which might have been in that infernal weapon, but even still I shifted with discomfort at the idea. “Damn.”
Emma fell quiet again, and when she spoke her voice had become brittle. “Did I do this? Is Brenner right?” Her mouth compressed into a thin line. “Am I wicked?”
I turned my eyes to the basin, tracing the lines of scripture etched into its stone. “Your lineage doesn’t define you.”
“That’s chimera shit, and you know it.” She drew in a shuddering breath, some anger flickering through the grief. “It defines everything. Even the afterlives hate me for what my family did in the past, and… and I know, don’t you understand? I know I’m not… not right.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Emma’s words began to come out faster, in a rush, as though she’d been holding them in so long they’d become an unbearable pressure inside her. “I hated him. Hendry. He’s been in love with me since we were children, but even then I knew what Brenner wanted, why he kept me around even after my parents died and he didn’t have them in his debt anymore. You understand, don’t you?”
I nodded slowly. “He wants you to marry his son, doesn’t he?”
“For my bloodline,” Emma confirmed, almost seething. “For my family’s magic. A Blood Art in his descendants would finally give him the treasure he needs to become the leader of a High House, and Brenner is a proud man, obsessed with legacy.”
Though I’d already begun to suspect it, confirmation of the fact still unsettled me. It malformed Emma’s situation from that of a tragic ward, protected by a stern but responsible guardian, into something very much like a prisoner.
“Not being in love with the man you’re being coerced into marrying doesn’t make you evil,” I said firmly.
“It’s not just that.” Emma huffed in frustration. “I’m angry all the time. It pleases me to be cruel, and I have dreams…” she winced. “I have dark dreams, of blood and fire, and they excite me… and because she is still inside me.”
Emma’s voice had changed, becoming more weary, full of resignation and resentment. “All of them are. All of House Carreon, in that great phalanx of bloody pikes that are my inheritance.” Her eyes slid past me to the wall. “My grandmother, before she died, told me what we did to Jon Orley, why he hates us… and why he will never forgive us. She told me why he hounds us.” She shut her eyes, the muscles in her face tightening. “She told me of my ancestors’ sins.”
And she began to talk of the past.
***
“You already know,” she began, “that my family was at war with House Orley for many generations. It’s said they warred even before the Exodus, when they were still Edaean families, and not Urnic. The ambushes, counter-plays, betrayals, and shifting alliances around that conflict are the stuff of legend in the Westvales. That was, until my great-grandmother’s time. Oh, we still feuded during those days, but this was well after the House Wars. At the time, the heir of House Orley, Lord Jon, was still young… as was the heiress of the Carreons.”
“Every great house in Urn has its epithet. House Dance are the Wasps, House Wake the Mourners, and so on. You already know my family are sometimes called the Shrikes. You know what the Orleys were called?”
She waited, and I realized the question wasn’t rhetorical. When I shook my head, a sickly smile formed on Emma’s lips. “The Companions. They were among the first to swear to the God-Queen, if you believe the stories, and follow her over the mountains into this land. Stalwart, honorable, beloved by their allies… true heroes, all around.”
She didn’t quite hide the note of skepticism she laced those words with.
“Whatever the case, the Carreons ruled through fear and draconian tradition, and the Orleys through trust and honor. Both families boasted great warriors, but neither could overcome the other. Eventually this locked us into a stalemate — large wars became untenable, but there was always some bloodshed every few years, mostly instigated by my own house.”
“That is, until a chance meeting occurred. Jon Orley was riding in the forests beyond his family’s land, hunting a wyrmblighted who’d come down from the Fences, and came upon Astraea Carreon.”
“I am certain you can guess what happens next. By all accounts, my great-grandmother was a great beauty, and still a young woman at the time. Jon wanted to marry her, and she, it seemed, returned his feelings. The Orleys believed it an avenue to peace, to mending old wounds and building bridges between themselves and their ancient enemy. More of the nobles got involved, and even many commonfolk, who made it a game to help the two indulge in their secret trysts. Soon enough it became quite the to-do… a great romance, a meeting of true love that would end war and bring about an age of peace in the Westvales, perhaps even a shining new kingdom.”
Knowing already where the tale ended from my conversation with the ghost of Lorena Starling, I felt a sick pit form in my stomach. I didn’t interrupt, however, letting Emma bring her dark tale to a close.
“Jon Orley, though young, was the apple of his lord father’s eye, his heir and champion both. And, though she had many older brothers, Lady Astraea was the eldest daughter of her own house. My family is matrilineal — our Art manifests more easily and more powerfully in the women of our line. Lord Jon and Lady Astraea would have been the future rulers of their families, and their joining would have ended many woes.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed to near slits, though I could still see their pale brown color very vividly in the poor lighting. The sacred candles cast shifting shadows over her features, forming a crawling mask of intermixing light and dark.
“The lords and ladies of all houses, both Orley and Carreon, and all their vassals, met and approved the match. The celebrations were grand. The matriarch of House Carreon shared cups with the ruling Lord Orley, and hatchets were buried. Then, on their wedding night, Jon and Astraea made love one final time.”
Emma closed her eyes, drawing in a shuddering breath. “Then she killed him. My great-grandmother slit her husband’s throat, cut out his heart, and had her guards display him on a spike from the castle walls. That same night, House Orley fell. They call it the Feast of Shrikes in my home country to this day.”
She fell silent, and I was taken aback for a moment by the abrupt end to the tale. The realization had come well before it had ended, but even still I grasped for confirmation. “Wait, Emma, are you trying to tell me that—”
“Yes.” Emma’s lips formed a terrible smile. “I’m not just a Carreon. My great-grandfather is Jon Orley, the very monster we fought at Orcswell today.”