In the golden afternoon sunlight a small column of adventurers were hiking up the gentle slope at the far end of the valley. They looked so remote and diminutive at that distance that it was quite strange to think how far they had pushed me.
With how things had gone after my failure to contain my essence, I’d feared they might try again, suicidal as it would have been, but their leader at least was smarter than that.
Jalera hadn’t spared us more than a glance as she organized her people to leave, but I could tell she wasn’t pleased with me. Understandable, in a way, given that so far as I could make out she was going into exile.
Quite how she had so compromised herself that she would have to flee Bellwood if she couldn’t capture a ‘mimic’ was still a mystery to me, but curious as I might have been it wasn’t the time to pry.
If Jalera had been sullen, Marcus had been oozing with vitriol. He directed it at all of us save Dolm, but most of all at his sister. Lyanna was still sitting, slumped against a rock, as the boy disappeared slowly into the trees.
She looked like a doll, hanging limply, eyes staring out unseeing.
Dolm was with her, talking to her, but the most he could get was the occasional nod. That left Berenike, Reynard and I together, sat in a loose circle by the water. We too looked the worse for our travails in our own ways.
My clothes were shredded, burned and torn scraps soaked in blood and ichor, unrecognizable as anything Patch would have worn and doing little to cover my body.
Berry was also bedraggled, and totally drained by what she’d been through. She would need time to recover before she could fight or fly. She’d also made vague mention of a worry about ‘molting’ – perhaps not too strange, given how many feathers she’d lost or had cut short – but like the rest of us, her injuries at least were healed.
Of all of us, Reynard was the most presentable, yet he looked ready to join Lyanna in paralytic angst. His ears were flattened against his head, his tail hanging down between his legs like that of a shamed dog. The poor young man seemed so pitiful that I had to consciously resist the urge to reach over and pet his cute head.
Unsurprisingly, Berenike was the opposite. She might still look a mess, but the Valkyrie showed no concern whatsoever for the family drama which had played out before her. She had leaned the details only via second-hand translation, but I suspected that to her mind Lyanna and the others deserved whatever sorrow they got, for what they’d done to us.
There was still an element of that in me too, but my righteous anger towards them had been doused by pity.
I’d never had a brother, or any close family really, but losing one couldn’t feel good.
When I thought of what had happened between Ael and I, and felt the tight grip of pain and anxiety around my heart, the grudge seemed almost trivial. Lyanna had lost a lot more than just one brother, too, if her tale were true.
“What’ll you do now?” Berenike said, in Cycloan.
I gave Reynard the translation. He sighed, with a lost expression on his face.
“I dunno… up to Lyanna really. I owe her way more’n I can pay back. Least I gotta try though.”
“You could stay here, in the Empire,” Berenike suggested. “There are lots of beastfolk here.”
“No humans though, is there?” he asked.
I glared at him, and he shrank from my eye.
“J-just the one, I guess,” came the reluctant correction. “But what about you? You live around here?”
I hesitated in my answer.
The obvious one was to say I lived in the Eyrie – I’d been given a room there, and even handmaidens – but would that still be the case on my return?
“I did… before I fell into the Underworld.”
Reynard looked quizzically at me, but I gave no further explanation.
For so long I’d yearned to reach the surface, to escape the Underworld and make it back to my friends… to Aellope…. Yet now that I was out, free in the open air and able to go right there, should I wish, I was suddenly unsure if I wanted to.
I had to return, to tell them of Ventora’s treachery and of Ivaldi and Uldmar’s gambit for peace – and indeed to lend what aid I could if protecting the people of the surface in the meantime – but what were they going to say when they saw me?
What would Ael think? What kind of expression would she turn on me, with that towering, enchanting visage of hers?
I saw her when I closed my eyes, clearer than a photograph, smiling down at me as she held me in both hands.
I wanted nothing more than to reach out, and to touch that playful, smug, grin she wore across her inviting lips….
Yet just as easily the visage became one of pain and betrayal, as I recalled her face that night, and imagined the anguish she’d felt at learning I’d left her behind.
The guilt stung anew. Guilt over what I’d put her through, over my defiance and my arrogance, my lies and my deceptions. It had all seemed so distant, so theoretical, when I was buried under many miles of rock, but now that I was out it terrified me to imagine what Ael might say, or think. Not just to see me return, but to learn all I’d kept from her.
If she didn’t hate me already, perhaps she soon would.
All of a sudden my heart ached for Echo.
The magical person I’d encountered in the depths had proven a true and loving friend, forgiving me for my deceptions and accepting everything I’d told them without hesitation or judgment. I wished they could be with me again now, to help me make sense of everything, and to support me in confronting whatever might await me at the Eyrie.
Entrusting them to Gastores, Ivaldi and the others had been painful, but there was no way they could have survived what I’d been through. Unlike Ivaldi, certain people among the adventurers who’d attacked me would probably have shattered them just out of spite.
I could only hope that things were going better for the crawler and the escapees from Northastr than they had for me.
The situation on the surface troubled me too – even Lyanna had mentioned the invasion, so it certainly wasn’t over yet, but I’d had no news for a long time now. Even meeting up with Berenike and the others had revealed little, as they’d set off well over a week ago now.
Nor had I dared ask Berenike much about the situation of the Eyrie when she departed.
For all we knew, the Pharyes could be on the verge of total victory, our hard-won chance for peace to be disregarded in favor of subjugation and ruin….
Fretting fruitlessly about all those thoughts and more, I didn’t notice Lyanna and Dolm until the latter spoke up.
“We best make camp,” he said, “sun’s going down soon, and this lass, Berry, she needs rest. So do we.”
“Lyanna… I’m so so sorry….” Reynard spoke softly, head hung, eyes looking only at her boots. “For what I done… for lyin’… an’ for… well everything.”
She stared down at him, and I saw the flickering light of anger in her puffy, red eyes.
Only the background rush of water broke the silence for several seconds.
Lyanna sank down onto the nearest rock, her legs folding under her in a limp tangle of clattering metal.
“It’s not your fault,” she muttered at last.
Reynard blinked at her, not daring to press his luck by inquiring further.
“None of this is your fault, Reynard. Or yours, Safkhet. You both just… got caught up in my mess.”
“But still, tellin’ the Naga everythin’, I… practically set ‘em on the expedition myself….”
Dolm shook his head firmly.
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“You only did what you had to, kid. I’d have done the same. Who’d die for a pack of nobles who were scheduling your execution the day before?”
Reynard’s eyes were watering, as he looked from Dolm to Lyanna.
She gave a small nod.
“At first I blamed you… I told myself I would have died before I told the Naga where to find the others…. But then I thought about if it… was Marcus they took. I’d have told him to do just as you did,” she said slowly. “I probably would have too, in the end.”
“But… because of it, ‘cause of what I done, they’ve all left you….”
Lyanna shook her head sadly at his words.
“This whole expedition was my mistake.”
“You’re your brother-”
“That was… a long time coming, Reynard.”
She gave a long, weak sigh.
“Marcus had to grow up without our mother… and… I wasn’t there for him. I couldn’t be. Not the way she would have been. I didn’t even know how….”
More tears trickled down her cheeks, but they were thin and faint, tired. She’d shed too many already that day.
“If it hadn’t been this, now… it would have been something else, a year or two down the line. When he realized that we’d… never be able to make enough gold to save mom.”
Dolm put a hand on her shoulder.
Lost as I was listening to the talk of betrayals and naga, in that moment at least I could see the hopelessness in her heart.
I knelt down by Lyanna’s side, and took her hand in mine.
“I know we’ve… put each other through a lot, but… once this war’s over, I’m going to help you, Lyanna, one way or another. We won’t let your mother die.”
“Right!” Reynard exclaimed, clapping his own hand tactlessly atop ours.
The woman gave a choked laugh at the sight of us both, and Dolm smiling down at her.
We couldn’t have been an especially impressive picture, but she dried her eyes with a sniff.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For now, we should rest. I’m… so tired.”
As urgent as it was to ensure that Ael and the Harpies got our news and warnings, I found it hard to disagree with that. Berenike looked ready to pass out.
I might have gone on without her, but I couldn’t just leave a friend like that, weakened and at the mercy of people who, for their repentance, had still attempted to kill us that very day. There was also the not-insignificant issue of finding my way in the mountains – Skycrown was hard to miss, but that didn’t mean it could be seen throughout the Cyclopean Bones. I wasn’t even sure what direction I needed to go in.
In the end I stripped out of my gross, destroyed rags, and Berry and I curled up together under the stars, a little way off from the others.
It was embarrassing, even if it wasn’t the first time she’d seen me naked, but Dolm had insisted that she needed to be kept warm.
The morrow promised to be a new set of trials, but for that moment, holding her hand as she slept, I was glad to just rest at ease with my friend. It reminded me of the night I’d spent in Aellope’s arms.
As I drifted off to sleep I found that I too was totally exhausted, consciousness slipping away with dramatic speed.
My final thought was to wonder if somewhere in her palace, Ael was thinking of me too.
~~~
Reclining against a towering root, a gnarl as her only pillow, the Empress gave a disgusted grunt at her surroundings.
“How can life withstand such ignominious conditions as this? Without sun or sky, crawling through these cramped tunnels and scrounging a living on repugnant slime and foul monster carcasses.”
“It won’t be for long now, Sister,” Arawn replied.
Their present conditions seemed both fortuitous and relatively comfortable to her, not even the worst she’d known out on campaign on the surface, but she knew better than to argue with Aellope when her sister’s mood was so dark. She could understand the reason, and it wasn’t their surroundings.
The gargantuan organic structure they had come upon was a rounded wooden mass which dwarfed even royalty. It was not so unlike a root bulb or seed, growing outwards in all directions, yet no seed had ever been so mighty at this; the very bedrock of the Underworld had crumbled where its roots pushed through, even patches of solid granite cracking and yielding. While it seemed still and immutable now, Arawn could imagine the inexorable insistence it must exert over time on any surface to stand against it.
What it actually was remained a mystery.
Arawn wondered how many more strange and wonderful things their world must contain, that they’d come upon so many in just the short time they’d been in the Underworld. There were horrors too, most certainly, but no harpy before them could claim to have seen so many beautiful and bizarre sights.
Their present shelter was a highlight even among those. They had come upon the enormous seed after breaking out of the enemy encirclement and retreating.
The encirclement had proven unexpectedly thin beneath them, and distasteful as it was, their hostages had bought them a window to break through, as well as a head-start. The enemy had moved laterally with them, however, rather than in direct pursuit, rebuffing their attempts to ascend. Instead they were forced to fly northwards, remaining in the labyrinthine depths. In their attempts to outflank their foes they had clashed with other enemies too; hideous monsters, deadly predators, even formorian hordes, as they tried to break out of the Underworld.
Hopes were high – with clear tunnels and caverns a Valkyrie outpaced a Skidbladnir or crawler with ease – yet Valkyries propelled themselves with their own wings, and their muscles must inevitably tire. That was how the Pharyes had been able to hound them so effectively, that and the mystifying ability they possessed to coordinate over vast distance. But even so, with the entire Underworld as the grounds for the pursuit, they were falling behind. Escape was just a matter of time, especially given the propensity of formorians to target the pharyes over the harpies, when given the choice.
As such, this was their final rest before their attempt to break out. For the hours until that time the tunnels around their present camp had been a welcome respite, for they had been deserted for some miles about the great seed, the ubiquitous and vibrant life of the Underworld absent, the passages barren and empty.
Odd, that, for the interior was clean and there were signs of active maintenance, trimming back the roots that burst from every surface, and preventing the rounded portal into the heart of the seed from growing over. There were even decorative etchings, carved into the walls above the moss, kept in sharp relief despite the growth of the living wood which was their medium.
Arawn couldn’t imagine what manner of creatures had created the place, for while the marks suggested claws, the beings must have had anywhere from three to thirty to a hand, given how varied the scratching seemed. They must also have been large, for the wooden cavity was could fit two royals comfortably.
Accessed via a hole at one end it was dank and mossy, a gently-glowing carpet extending up the walls and bathing all in a diffuse, warm orange. That background was cut through by the brighter ‘bulbs’ that formed like knots in the wood, and shone with a vibrant green light, blinking as if in reaction to the movement of the occupants. The Stormqueen’s guards, chosen by Arawn, stood watch just outside, but the two sisters had the space to themselves.
“Not long you say, and yet we have lingered here too long already,” Ael murmured.
“We’re doing all we can,” Arawn reminded her, “try to rest; you need your strength for the morrow.”
“I know,” Ael said, with a bitter expression, “if all goes well it will be mere days before we leave the Underworld far behind us, yet… how can anything go well in this awful place, away from the Sky? The Goddess cannot hear our prayers here, and no sun rises to mark the days... while all the time on the surface the people are suffering. Lives are being lost, precious, and irreplaceable lives….”
Arawn had an idea of which lives Aellope thought of with those words, and she brushed a tear from her elder sister’s cheek.
“This place… it plays cruelly with the mind,” Ael went on, “you… think you feel things, sense… people.”
It had been mere hours ago, mid-flight, that the Stormqueen had sensed the strange energy coming from far above them, distant and faint, yet familiar.
It made Ael’s heart ache, with a dull sorrow that was worse than any physical pain.
Still the strange human girl resided there, even with so many greater woes and troubles behind and ahead of them.
Now she was daydreaming about sensing her mana again, her own subconscious poking at the open wound.
Aellope felt a fool for being so obsessed.
“Achelois felt something too,” Arawn pointed out, “perhaps… it was real?”
Ael shook her head sadly.
“I heard the… descriptions of her wounds, of how she fell…. No, it does no good to entertain such fantasies.”
How painful it was, just to think of that report, of those… descriptions.
“Safkhet has left us… I won’t torment myself with false hope.”
It was a disservice, even disloyalty, to those who still survived; to her loved ones, and to her waiting, suffering subjects, to linger on that one loss.
Her piercing eyes transfixed the princess, as Ael took her hands.
“I have you, Arawn. We have one another. There is much to be done when we return to the Eyrie, so… many mistakes to set right, so much to be done for the realm. There is no sense in fretting over those who chose to abandon us.”
She couldn’t keep the bitter note from her voice.
Their tails curled together as she put her arm and wings around her sister.
“Still, I miss her.” Arawn spoke softly. “Even if she did it the wrong way, her sacrifice was for all of us. She saved a great many lives.”
Aellope’s claws tightened as she felt the moisture on her cheeks.
“But… what of her own life?” the Empress whispered.
It was absurd to be so lost without that one woman, who had come into her life so suddenly and violently and departed in much the same way, yet whenever her thoughts were free to drift, they flowed towards the same island, a small dot of brilliance shining in the sun, amid dark and stormy seas.
If only… she would come back to her.
“I believe she took the risk because she believed that… other lives were just as important as hers,” Arawn said quietly.
‘Not to me,’ Ael wanted to say.
Instead she just nodded.
“She was… as kind and… loving as she was strange,” she said finally.
“For all that happened and as short a time as it was, I’m glad she came into our lives. I learned much from her,” spoke her sister, dutifully ignoring the glistening moisture on the queen’s cheeks. “If not for her, and for you, sister, I would never have… realized how wrong we’ve been.”
Arawn had meant them to be encouraging, but the words were a frustrating reminder of just how much was still to be done, how much ill her own actions and those of her line had wrought.
The younger woman seemed to realize that, and pulled her sister against her tight.
“I know it seems overwhelming right now, or it does to me at least. But whatever happens, we face it together,” Arawn declared. “No more sacrifices.”
Ael graced her with a watery-eyed smile.
“No more sacrifices.”
~~~
“She really killed them, jus’ for the sake of her plans!” Chione said, entirely too loudly.
The pale look on her face, and the whiteness of the knuckles she slammed onto the table showed Agytha just how rattled the larger woman was.
She shared her dismay.
Just earlier that day the truth had reached them about the fall of the vast territory of Ramhorn. Not the false tale that Ladies Tanit and Ventora had concocted when the news first arrived, but the testimony of one who had actually been present.
A member of the Flight Corps had found her; a fleeing servant girl who had escaped the enemy attack by mere chance, and was far too scared and confused to have shared her story to any noble… but allowed it to be teased out by a similarly low-born savior.
That savior had been one of those sympathetic to the cause, and she had communicated the tale to her flightmistress. From there it was carried to the Eyrie, and to Agytha’s ears.
She had hardly believed it at first, but there was a grim logic to the account.
On the day in question the girl had been put to work, sorting and packing for her mistress, Lady Tanit’s cousin. Supposedly the young woman was taking a trip to the Eyrie to see her, and consult on how best to quell the unrest, but she had insisted on far too much being brought for a normal stay of mere days or weeks.
The suspicion around the roost had been that the resistance to her rule was growing worse. Some were even murmuring of open rebellion in the towns, even at the foot on of the mountain, where smoke had been rising for several days. Incredible and outrageous as it might sound, the story going around was one of ogres, beastfolk, naga and even lowborn harpies uniting against Lady Tanit. Naturally, others claimed it was the work of the enemy, or of beastfolk or naga saboteurs, agitating for their own violent ends.
Whatever the truth, Lady Tanit’s roost was high up on a mountainside, away from the trouble.
What had bothered the servant girl more than anything was how urgent the packing seemed to be. Despite the huge volume of extra work, she’d still had her usual duties too, keeping her working long into the night to catch up, lest she be punished come morning.
It was a dark night, but as she swept the balcony out she saw the shadows of multiple highborn women, taking flight overhead with a full retinue of guards and attendants.
Mere minutes later the attack had begun, the mechanical monsters of the enemy bursting out of the ground to seize not own the town below, but the fortress too.
“Sure?” Shukra asked, with her typical parsimony.
Karlya gave a grim nod.
“We already suspected it, but this is proof – Ventora’s working with the enemy. She used them to destroy Ramhorn because the people were organizing against her. They might even have been in open rebellion.”
“Even for her this is… sick,” Chione muttered. “We gotta move soon. Rootflood’re right – even if goin’ it alone were stupid, rebellion’s the only way now, ‘fore they have the rest of us killed too.”
“We simply don’t have enough people,” Aggy lamented, with a weary sigh.
“We can at least try!”
Karlya shook her head, with a grim certainty. “No. For any one territory to throw off the highborn we have to capture or drive out the nobles, yes, but also overpower their guards and the Valkyries stationed there. Trust me, serving girls and farmers armed with spears won’t stand a chance against even a single flight of Valkyries. All of this… it can’t work unless we win them over… and while I can muster a good few, the majority won’t move against the Throne or General Jagna.”
Chione’s fiery expression softened, as she sagged back in her seat. It was hard to argue the point with an actual Valkyrie.
Hidden away under the library, the book storeroom in which they were meeting was dark and cramped at the best of times, but the slight young handmaiden could feel the walls closing in tighter than ever now.
“If only we had the Stormqueen… and Princess Arawn’s army…,” Agytha said, with a sigh.
Chione leant back in her seat, looking thoughtful.
“We gotta face it; they ain’t coming. Nor’s Saf. Whatever happened to ‘em all, they can’t get to us right now, so we gotta do somethin’ about all this ourselves. We jus’ gotta get some proper proof we can show them. Proof better’n one frightened servant girl.”
“Perhaps… if we could… know where the enemy are going to attack next? And tell the local Valkyries in secret. They’d believe their own, and if they saw proof that Ventora is collaborating with their enemies….”
“We gotta spy on Ventora then, figure out how she does it.”
“But that’s too dangerous, her retinue is huge! She keeps guards about her day and night too, they follow everywhere but into the temple and into court itself! If we try to follow her we’ll be caught-”
“In a heartbeat,” Karlya confirmed.
“Then we gotta find some other way. Maybe Tanit?”
Karlya gave a dubious shake of her head. “She’s got to be involved, but she’s got plenty of people around her too. We’ve no idea when or how they meet to scheme either, or what measures they’ve taken to hide themselves. If they use magic anything like our little Witch Laureate’s then we’ll never find anything. We just start tailing her and we’ll give ourselves away.”
“If only Diantha would help us figure out where to look,” Aggy said, “I had Shukra send her a message, about the truth of Ramhorn, but she didn’t answer….”
“I wish to the Goddess we could have convinced her,” Karyla said softly, “with her abilities she could be worth a whole squadron of Valkyries.”
It was a sentiment they had repeated many times in past days.
This time, however, the Goddess answered them, with a soft, tentative knock at the door.