“Look!” cried Evan, who had not realized what had happened. He waved his hand excitedly and whispered loudly again. “Those are more than clouds! There are men in that storm . . . Men or demons!”
“Trespassers!” shouted the Stag who had shoved Aelin, loud enough to be heard above the wind. “The strangers are here!”
“Strangers!” Even as he struggled with the soldier, Aelin felt a swift flush of rage. “This is Hernystir’s tower—the High Throne’s border station! It is you and Curudan who are strangers and criminals!”
The rest of the Stags had turned at the soldier’s cry and now came swarming back across the gallery. Aelin still held his knife, but he let them grapple him and drag him down without shedding any blood. They were the king’s guard, after all, apparently on the king’s orders: if he fought back, they had every right to kill him.
“Evan,” he called. “Do not resist.”
But the young soldier hardly seemed to be listening. A Stag had grabbed each of his arms, but Evan still stared out into the chaos at the mouth of the valley, his eyes wide with astonishment and wonder. “There are silver men in the storm!” he cried. “Were my parents wrong to deny the old gods? By all that is holy, I can see them! I think they are our ancestors, Sir Aelin! They are so tall, so fair! It must be Great Hern and his hunters!”
But Aelin had listened carefully to his great-uncle Eolair’s stories of the Storm King’s war. He remembered that when the Sithi had come to Hernysadharc, the king’s daughter had thought they were the gods come to save the Hernystiri people. He felt sure, though, that these creatures hiding in the storm were not the Sithi but their white-skinned, dark-hearted cousins from the north, being allowed to cross Hernystiri land as though they were old allies.
Something more than ordinary treason is going on here, he realized, and in that moment Aelin wished that he had fought to the death. Because it was the Sithi’s deadly cousins that the baron was welcoming onto the lands of mortals.
The Norns had come to Hernystir.
The song was so powerful that Viyeki found himself lost in it, helpless as a mariner cast from his ship and clinging to a floating spar. The singing seemed to knit together earth and sky into a single great tunnel of darkness, and hours and miles passed in mere flickering, lightning-licked moments as the world rolled away beneath their horse’s hooves. Outside of the storm-song it might have been deepest night or bright day, but inside the song Viyeki saw only midnight, heard only the wail of the winds. Even the stars, which should have been constant when he could see them through the tumult of the storm, turned into glowing snail trails in the sky, smeared tracks of light that ran from horizon to horizon.
The spellmakers from the Order of Song did not cease their music even when their horses stumbled from the pace, or when the great wagons of Viyeki’s builders toiled up narrow passes through the hills, and wove their melodies with such strength that their wordless song seemed to outshout the storm they had called down.
But still, Viyeki thought wildly, no matter how great the power of their song, we cannot hope to cross the lands of mortals without anyone seeing us, even in these mostly deserted lands. And what will happen when they do? When this invasion of mortal lands is known, it must be considered a declaration of war, and this time we may not survive the mortals’ anger and their far, far greater numbers.
Viyeki had not forgotten the days after the War of Return’s disastrous ending and the desperate defense of the Nakkiga Gate. The survival of his entire race had hung on the courageous sacrifice of a few hundred of his people—such a small number, yet at that moment it had seemed so large. As he and his workers from the Order of Builders had struggled to shore up the defenses while the mortals beat against the gates, he had felt sure he was living through the last moments of his people. Even in the aftermath, after the mountain fell, the gates were sealed, and the mortals retreated, it had seemed unlikely that the Hikeda’ya would ever again be more than a small, doomed tribe, a shadow of their former greatness that would wither away at last.
Why have the queen and Akhenabi set this in motion? How do they think to cause anything but the final destruction of our people?
Even as the heretical questions came to him, the music of the Singers changed tone. The riders slowed, and Viyeki, without conscious thought at first, slowed with them. He felt a superstitious flutter in his heart, the certainty of a child who had done something bad and could not escape from the knowledge of it.
The queen heard me! She heard my blasphemy and my weakness.
And just as quickly, another thought shouldered its way into his mind, the stern voices of his teachers and elders: of course Queen Utuk’ku must know what she was doing. She was the great mother of the Hikeda’ya and her every thought was for her people’s safety. She of all living things had seen the Garden and knew what had been lost. Who was Viyeki to question her? A hundred High Magisters had ruled the House of Walls since Utuk’ku had first come to this land—Viyeki himself had recited the name of every one of them at his investiture. He was still but a child compared to his immortal queen.
His heart pained him as though he had been stabbed. Forgive me, great mistress. Forgive me, Mother of All.
The great company now slowed and halted, but the storm did not dissipate. Instead it surrounded them on all sides, growling with thunder. In a sudden new flare of lightning Viyeki could see his Builders waiting, their eyes wide but their faces rigid as masks, so that they might have been mummers at the Ceremony of the Lost Garden, acting out an ancient tragedy. The Singers still made their music, but it was muted now, as though all the riders waited in the eye of a storm.
Time passed, but nothing changed. If they had reached their destination, Viyeki wondered, why were they not making camp? If something unforeseen had stopped them, like the arrival of mortal warriors, why did he hear no sound of conflict?
He rode forward against the stiff wind until he found Buyo, the leader of the Sacrifices. “Commander, tell me what is happening,” he demanded. “Why have we stopped?”
The officer bowed his head. “High Magister Viyeki. Your pardon, great one, but we have made a promise for the right to cross these lands, and must fulfill it.”
“A promise?” Viyeki was growing tired of the pretense that he was in any way leading this expedition. “I do not understand.”
“Nor do I, great lord. But that is all I know.” Again, Buyo bowed his head, as if offering it for the ax.
Many Great Years earlier, when Viyeki was young, a Magister of one of the great houses could have had even an important officer like Buyo killed for such a vague, unsatisfying answer and no one would have thought it either unusual or unjustified. Viyeki was more open to change than many of his caste, but at the moment he could not help a nostalgic yearning for those bygone days. “How may I learn more?”
“Host Singer Sogeyu will be back soon, I am told.” Buyo made a gesture toward the squall of rain and wind to the southwest. “She will doubtless answer all your questions, great lord.”
Viyeki had no choice. To complain or protest would be to show himself weak, and weakness was like a fracture in rock: eventually, it would lead to collapse. He nodded. “I will wait.”
• • •
High Singer Sogeyu rode back across the storm-flattened grasses to the waiting column, appearing out of the swirling dark like something summoned by ancient arts. Her face was full of cold satisfaction.
“Magister Viyeki!” she said, as if they had met by surprise near the Oil Fountains in the Queen’s Square. “My storm-singers have held the winds steady for a long, unsatisfying time, I know, but now we may ride on!”
“Where did you go, Host Singer?”
Viyeki’s tone had been sharp, and he thought he saw a hint of irritation flit across the Singer’s features, but if he had, it was gone in an instant. “To fulfill a pledge, Magister. We ride across the lands o
f a mortal king, and they are jealous of their privileges. They do not sell them lightly.”
“Sell them? What do you mean?”
“These lands belong to the mortal king Hugh of Hernystir. We had to buy our right to pass across them.”
“Do you mean you have made a bargain with mortals so that our mission could proceed? Why was I not told?”
Sogeyu folded her hands in a gesture of peaceful cooperation between partners. “Because the bargain was made by our great queen herself, through my master, Lord Akhenabi.” She watched for a moment to see what the mention of those names would do.
Viyeki maintained a stony impassivity, but inside he was shaken. He was more thoroughly in Akhenabi’s power out here than he ever would have been at home. “And what was the bargain, if I may ask without intruding on Lord Akhenabi’s privilege?”
“Oh, nothing of much import,” Sogeyu told him. “In exchange for his turning a blind eye to our passage, we have given the mortal king a little nothing—a bauble that he coveted. But to him it shines like a drop of dew in a spider’s web, and like most mortals, he is blinded by greed for shiny things.”
“You gave him gold?”
“Oh, nothing so ordinary.” Sogeyu shook her head. “But, please, do not concern yourself, High Magister. King Hugh is merely another player in the queen’s game, although being mortal, he does not understand or appreciate his place in the greater exercise. We have done what we promised, so he will continue his useful ignorance of our presence as we make our way across his lands.”
“We are passing beyond Hernystir, then?” Again, Viyeki was shaken. Hikeda’ya had not traveled so far from home since the great war.
“Oh, yes,” said Sogeyu, content as a bird preening its feathers. “We are going somewhere where you can ply your most excellent skills in furthering the queen’s design. Do not fear, Magister, your part in this is very great. When we get there, you and your laborers will astound the world!”
Viyeki overlooked the slighting word “laborers”—as if there was nothing more to the Order of Builders than digging and piling stone on stone. “And what is our destination, Host Foreman? Where does the queen’s plan send us?”
The Singer bowed as to a superior, but her eyes seemed to tell a different story. “Trust the Mother of All, High Magister Viyeki,” she said soothingly. “Trust my master, who has lived nearly as long as the queen herself. They have planned carefully, and you will learn all that is expected of you—but in their time, not your own.”
“Of course I trust the queen,” Viyeki replied. “She is the Mother of All.” But the phrase did not feel as familiar or reassuring as it usually did.
Deep in thought, he rode silently back to his men as the Singers raised their voices again and the winds began to scream. When the company again set off through the tunnel of angry weather, he felt as though a piece of the storm had broken loose from the whole and fastened itself to him, dazzling and confusing him with lightning and turning him cold inside. He could not imagine ever being free of it as long as he rode these unfamiliar lands, among all these hidden minds.
42
Forest Music
The crowds that had seen them off from the castle and Erchester had been loud and enthusiastic and studded with nobility like a diadem. The crowds who came out during the first part of their journey north were a great deal more humble, but even more excited to see Prince Morgan and Count Eolair, the famous Hand of the Throne. In Aldhame and Draycot and other small towns shouting children lined the roads and workers came to the edge of the fields, sweating and grass-stained, to watch the procession pass. But what Morgan could not understand was how such large crowds had gathered even before they arrived.
“Post riders,” Eolair explained. “Carrying the crown’s letters and other important papers. Sometimes money or bills of credit as well, which is why they travel armed, as you may see. Some ride daily from Erchester out to Sistan and Falshire. Others go to Stanshire or Cellodshire, stopping on the way to change horses, so that a rider can travel from the Hayholt to the borders of Erkynland in only a day or two.”
“Do you mean my grandparents are sending out letters, telling people to come and cheer for us?” Morgan liked the thought of being that important even if he didn’t like the idea of the king and queen arranging it.
The count laughed. Eolair seemed in good health despite the recent attempt on his life, and showed no sign of it except the bandages he still wore on the wound to his shoulder. Morgan had seen the injury and it was not small. He was impressed by the old man’s fortitude. “Your grandparents? I think not,” Eolair said. “I suspect that the post riders themselves are also delivering news of their own in the form of gossip when they stop to eat and drink. A company like ours is more than enough to catch at people’s attention. You are one of the royal family, and I am known a little as well.”
“Perhaps your people have heard you ride with the admirable Qanuc,” said Little Snenneq from atop his mighty ram. “Always in these parts people seem happy to see trolls up close. And I am well known for my impressive size.”
Qina, his betrothed, thumped his arm and made a face. Binabik and Sisqi, riding nearby, both smiled.
“I am thinking that your great size, Snenneq,” Qina’s father said, “despite filling us with pride and delighting so many of your friends back home, is perhaps not so much to be noticed by the tall folk who live here in Erkynland.”
Though Binabik said it kindly, Little Snenneq seemed saddened by the idea that the crowds had not noticed his unusual height. He stayed quiet for a while after that.
• • •
The large company rode for three days before they reached the border of Falshire and turned north off the River Road to follow the line of the forest. After they left the broad thoroughfare, the towns gave way to villages or even single crofter’s huts, and nobody came to watch them pass except the occasional smallholder leaning on his hoe. It must have been a strange sight, Morgan thought, the armored knights on their horses, foot soldiers bearing the covered litter of the dying Sitha, and her bodyguard of trolls riding rams and a huge, white wolf. Those who saw it would surely remember it for the rest of their lives.
• • •
Despite the variety of mounts, the company traveled faster than Morgan had expected. The weather here was hot and dry, nor were they slowed by civilians and the massive baggage train that had attended the High Throne on its progress to Rimmersgard and back. Although he still was not happy to have been forced into this journey, Morgan had to admit that riding with Count Eolair, Sir Porto, and the rest of the soldiers was closer to the way he imagined himself: a man, doing the important things men did.
Still, as he lay on his cloak that night, disdaining a tent like Eolair’s so he could watch the burning bright stars wheel overhead before they plunged at last into the black sea of nighttime forest, Morgan had to admit that he was lonely. But the strange part was that he could not say what, exactly, he missed.
He missed Lillia, of course. Because of the difference in their ages, his love for his younger sister surprised him sometimes. They had not spent much of their childhoods together; by the time she could talk he was learning how to ride and fight. Soon enough she began protesting that she too should be taught to use a sword. That had led to some sharp words between Lillia’s mother, who was completely opposed to the idea, and her grandmother, who felt there was good precedent in the family for a girl learning to protect herself.
The queen had won, as queens often did, but after only a few days of instruction, Lillia had decided fighting was not as interesting as she’d thought, and wanted to learn how to ride a horse instead.
During the long trip north to Elvritshalla, Morgan had grown used to not seeing her, to not being noisily awakened by her at terrible hours of the morning, or dragged out to the garden in the middle of a game of dice to see some exceptional bird or o
ther, and the ache of her absence had subsided enough that he barely thought of it. But seeing how much she had grown in the months he was gone frightened him a little in a way he did not understand. She had cried when he rode out this time, not even trying to hide it, which was not like the Lillia he knew, who generally wept only in frustrated anger when kept from something she badly wanted. So alive, so fierce! How could he feel so strongly about her when her own mother hardly seemed to . . .
But at least his mother loved Lillia, in her own slipshod way. Morgan’s father had . . .
With a huff of breath, he pushed the memory away—that old, terrible memory. It often came to him when he was alone, and more frequently when he was both alone and sober, one of the great reasons that he hated that combination of miseries.
Will anyone else miss me? My mother? A bit, I suppose, though she did not seem overly troubled by my traveling for months with Grandmother Miriamele and Grandfather Simon. And of course she’d be wretched if I died, because who cares for the mother of a dead heir?
Morgan hoped God was not listening at this particular moment, because even as he thought it, he regretted it. It had been made very plain by Father Nulles and others over the years that loving one’s parents was God’s firm command. And he did his best to love his mother, he truly did. Surely God couldn’t expect anything more than his best. But he couldn’t understand how she could be so disinterested in her own daughter. Sometimes it seemed she scarcely saw her from one day to the next, except when Countess Rhona or one of the other women brought Lillia in to say goodnight.
But his mother, disinterested though she might be, at least would never . . . never have said . . .