The axe felt heavy on his shoulder and somehow he was back on Lord August’s farm and they were walking home from felling timber. He remembered that day well because he was happy, because Lord August had put his arm around both Froi and the boys. ‘My lads did well today,’ he had said, and as Froi crossed this icy tomb it occurred to him that he might never see Lord August and Lady Abian again. That he had never told them the truth. Finn and Isaboe had taught him to love, but the village of Sayles had taught him to belong.
Let this work, he begged silently. Let this work. Because he wanted to see all of their faces again.
When he reached Arjuro, his teeth were chattering through blue lips as the wind tore through the Priestling’s robe. Arjuro was muttering a prayer to the gods, his eyes watering from the cruel wind.
Before Arjuro could speak a word in surprise, Froi embraced him.
Over Arjuro’s shoulder he saw Dorcas and the riders already advancing towards them.
‘Will you trust me and do as I say?’ Froi asked.
‘What could you possibly say that would have me leave you here alone?’ Arjuro asked, his voice broken.
‘Your brother is waiting for you, Arjuro. I can protect myself, but I can’t protect you at the same time.’ Froi watched as the riders gained ground on horseback. He was running out of time.
‘So will you trust me and do as I say?’ he asked again.
Arjuro’s arms tightened a moment and then let go. His eyes met Froi’s. And then Arjuro nodded.
‘Go!’
Arjuro ran and within seconds the first of the arrows flew past Froi. He swung around to signal Gargarin and Lirah to mount their horse and then began hacking relentlessly at the ice with his axe. When the surface broke beneath him, it sounded like the demons of young Froi’s dreams, devouring the earth and swallowing him whole. He heard the roar of men’s voices and he stumbled as the world tilted and he plunged through the ice, escaping the sharp tip of an enemy’s weapon, but finding himself falling into a freezing abyss.
Froi tried to make his way to the surface, but solid ice surrounded him and he struggled to break free of the tomb he had created for himself. No matter how hard he tried, he could not find an opening that would let him out. He felt a sob rise in him from pure fear and panic, and he pounded a clenched fist at the ice, his knuckles burning and his chest tightening. He thought he heard words from far away say, ‘Retreat! Retreat!’ and his only comfort was that it meant Bestiano’s men were turning back and Gargarin and Lirah and Arjuro would be safe. He couldn’t think and he couldn’t breathe; his head, his chest, everything felt as if it would explode and he tried to count, tried to remember anything … think of her name. Think … nothing … someone’s there … name … name … you know his name …
Don’t close your eyes, Froi.
Tariq!
How can you find her with your eyes closed, Froi?
Reginita.
But he had nothing left inside him to keep him awake and he was scared and he wanted to be with them because Tariq and the Reginita were safe and they’d take care of him.
Go back, Froi. Go back.
And suddenly he was someplace else … on the streets of the Sarnak capital … and he could see himself tossing and turning on his bed of lice and hay in that sewer he shared with the rats, awoken by a voice … how could he have forgotten that voice … the voice … it sang … Sprie. One word promised him a life he hadn’t dared to imagine, and so he travelled from the Sarnak capital to the town of Sprie, where he stole a ring from Evanjalin of the Monts … she and me? We’re the same … we live … we do anything to make that happen … that’s the difference between us and the others …
He opened his eyes and saw a face.
Tariq!
Hurry, Froi. Those from the lake of the dead are coming for your spirit.
Suddenly the ice broke above him and Froi swam up towards the blinding light. Later, he couldn’t say how he climbed out of that hole, but Beast was there, pounding at the ice with his hoof, his teeth pulling at the shirt on Froi’s back until he was lying on the ice, Beast down beside him, the hot air of his breath warming Froi’s face. And with the last strength he had left in his numb body, Froi crawled onto the saddle and then they were flying across that fractured lake. A Serker lad on his Serker horse.
And as the world behind them caved in, Froi wrote his bond. The one to live by. The one that would keep him on Beast as they raced to a place where the earth beneath their feet was solid. He wrote his bond with a name. And then another and another and another. Of every person he loved and would be condemned to never see again if he let go. He didn’t know how long it took, but the list was long and it kept him warm and clinging to life.
And later, in his half-conscious state, he felt hands grab him and drag him from the horse, but he needed to burrow, he needed to keep warm, and he heard the sobs and his clothes were ripped from him and he was numb again and Tariq was there once more and so was the Reginita’s voice telling him to stay away.
She’s not here, Froi! She needs you there.
He thought he heard Arjuro’s voice. ‘Keep him warm, his body is letting go,’ and then Froi felt the heat as they held onto him tight, until he drifted off to a sleep where he could find her, where he could hold her in his arms and feel the roundness of her belly between them.
‘We’ll be his cocoon,’ she said, her voice always cold, but her words flaming with the heat of emotion, ‘and he’ll never doubt he was loved, regardless of everything.’
Finnikin spent the day with Isaboe and Jasmina visiting the Flatlands. There had been much change these past months with Beatriss’s people moving to Fenton and the Priest-king opening a shrinehouse in her old village of Sennington. Who would have believed contentment could come to the area after so much upheaval?
‘August and Abian are meeting us in Sennington for supper with blessed Barakah,’ Isaboe said to Beatriss. ‘Why don’t you join us?’
Beatriss’s smile was bittersweet.
‘Trevanion’s home tonight and Vestie does love our nights together, so perhaps another time.’
Finnikin could see his father from the window. ‘There are a lot of hardworking lads out there, Beatriss,’ he said, watching Perri and Trevanion working with the Fenton lot in the fields. The younger lads were full of vigour.
Beatriss peered over his shoulder. ‘Well, the fact is that the lads do work hard, but not as much as when Trevanion’s home. Then every young man seems to break their back for his attention. As though he’s recruiting for the Guard.’
‘And how is life with my father?’ he teased.
‘What I’ve seen of him?’ she said, returning to fuss over Isaboe with currant cake. Everyone in the Flatlands felt a great need to feed his wife today. For the baby, they’d whispered to him.
‘Your father instructs the Guard and they do what he says,’ Beatriss said. ‘He instructs Vestie and she wants an explanation of the why and the why not. They love each other dearly, but he’s not used to having to explain his instructions.’
Finnikin laughed. ‘My father was never good at the why and the why not.’
‘And how is Vestie faring?’ Isaboe asked. Finnikin could see Beatriss’s daughter carrying Jasmina on her back around the fields, always staying close to Trevanion.
Beatriss grimaced. ‘I can’t lie. She asks at every single opportunity if she can go to Lucian’s mountain and down that valley. I asked her the other day if it was Tesadora she missed and she said …
Beatriss hesitated.
‘What?’ Isaboe asked.
‘She said, “I miss them both. I miss her and I miss my friend, Kintana.”’
Soon after, Trevanion entered the kitchen with Vestie and Jasmina to find some string to mark out the rose garden he had promised to plant with the little girls, in remembrance of Lord Selric’s daughters who once lived there.
‘I thought you were on leave, Trevanion,’ Isaboe said. ‘You’re supposed to rest.’
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‘There’s too much work to be done,’ he said, reaching over Beatriss’s shoulder for a slice of cake. ‘Some wives buy trinkets and cloth. Mine buys a village.’
Beatriss laughed. She looked tired from the responsibility, but happy, and Finnikin knew that she would enjoy a reprieve these next few days with Trevanion home. By the entrance, Perri hovered. He was more agitated since they had arrived back from Charyn. No, perhaps not agitated, but withdrawn. Today he was Jasmina’s guard and he watched her like a hawk. Fenton was a beehive of activity with villagers coming and going and the guard was at times overly cautious.
Beatriss’s bailiff came to the door soon after and she disappeared for a while to sort out an issue with one of the cottagers, while Trevanion took the two little girls with him to plant the rose garden.
‘Come and sit, Perri,’ Isaboe said when it was just the three of them left in the room. She had a strange relationship with Trevanion’s second-in-charge. In those months they were all together in exile, Perri had doubted her the most, but once she had proven her worth, he was steadfast in his allegiance to her. She had once told Finnikin that no guard made her feel safer. But perhaps the situation between Tesadora and Isaboe had altered things between them both.
‘You want to speak to me,’ she said. It was a statement rather than a question.
‘What makes you think that, Your Majesty?’ Perri asked quietly.
‘You hover whenever you want to speak to me and then you wait until everyone is gone and you speak. Even if it’s about the weather. Or your concern about Jasmina’s safety. Or about an idea you have to include the Forest Dwellers in the Flatland villages’ harvest time.’
Perri didn’t respond.
‘Am I not right?’ she asked.
There was a ghost of a smile on Perri’s face. ‘You’re always right, my queen.’
‘See there,’ Isaboe said, looking at Finnikin and pointing at Perri. ‘There is a clever, clever man.’
Perri sat down, but still didn’t speak until finally Finnikin stood, knowing there would be no talk today in his presence.
‘I’ll see what my father’s doing,’ he said with a sigh.
‘No. Stay, Finn,’ Perri said.
Finnikin was glad to, and he caught the quick flash of concern in Isaboe’s eyes.
Perri swallowed hard. ‘I feel as if I’m breaking a confidence here, but she never quite confided in me, so perhaps it’s my truth I speak of today as well.’
Finnikin somehow knew Perri was speaking of Tesadora.
‘We were enemies all our young lives … Tesadora and I,’ Perri said, ‘and then when we reached fifteen … well, you can imagine. We still hated each other and hardly ever exchanged a word, but I’d know where to find her in the forest and she’d know what I was there for.’ He shook his head. ‘It was madness, and regardless of what we got up to out there among that bracken, we were both filled with hate for each other and everyone else in this kingdom. Until the day I came across Trevanion. You were newly born, Finn, and your father had lost your mother, Bartolina. And he put all his trust in me.’ Perri looked away. ‘Me.’ He shook his head. ‘You both do it now with the little Princess and sometimes I want to warn you that there’s something base inside of me. How could you trust me with that precious creature?’
‘You never need ask that, Perri,’ Isaboe said, reaching out to take his hand. He moved it away. Perri wasn’t much for touching and emotions.
‘Were you still with Tesadora when my father made Trevanion captain?’ Isaboe asked.
Perri nodded. ‘We were aged twenty at the time. I lived in the barracks with the rest of the Guard, and when I was on leave, I’d ride out to the forest and share her bed. It was nothing more than that, I’d tell myself. Tesadora would say it as well. “Don’t read more into this than what it is.” Through Trevanion and my place in the Guard, I’d been introduced to respectable women, but I was always drawn back to her. We’d do cruel things to each other, but she reminded me of your father, Finn. She knew exactly what I was, but still saw some good. I began to see my worth through both their eyes.’
He looked at Isaboe. ‘I’m breaking an unspoken confidence here, Your Majesty.’
‘There are many unspokens between you and Tesadora, Perri,’ she said firmly. ‘I’d advise you one day to speak them.’
He sighed and for a moment Finnikin believed Perri wouldn’t continue. But they waited.
‘Almost nineteen years ago, she was with child.’
Finnikin heard the sharp intake of Isaboe’s breath.
Perri nodded. ‘So we played a game of pretence that we lived a normal life. I spent every spare day with Tesadora in the forest. We started planting gardens and building a cottage. She told no one about the babe, of course. At that time she was estranged from her mother and from every Forest Dweller. They did hate Tesadora for her mixed blood.’
‘Why estranged from her mother?’ Isaboe asked.
He looked up at her, a rueful expression on his face. ‘Because Tesadora believed Seranonna loved the royal children more than her own half-Charynite bastard. They had a strange relationship, Tesadora and Seranonna, but she still grieves her mother today. That I know.’
‘And the babe?’ Isaboe asked quietly, her hand absently going to her swollen belly.
‘I came home to Tesadora one time nearing her ninth month and she told me there was no babe. She had bled and it was gone.’ He shook his head bitterly. ‘And I … I accused her of killing the child. The only thing that stopped me from harming her was a promise I made to the Captain that I would never strike a woman. I felt it so strongly. In my heart she hadn’t just killed our babe, she had killed the life I wanted with her. So I made sure I never crossed her path again … until six years later.’
The days of the unspeakable.
‘After the deaths of your family, my queen.’
Perri seemed to be in another place. Every Lumateran had their own horror-filled memory of that time.
‘Regardless of what I thought Tesadora had done, I couldn’t bear the idea of watching her burn like her mother, so I travelled out to the forest and found her in a hiding place. One only known to us. She had gone searching for any survivors and found the helpless novices of Sagrami.’
Perri had hidden them across the kingdom and close to the Sendecane border, the first of many to keep them safe.
‘We spent another ten years apart during the curse and for all that time, I still believed she had done something to that babe. That she didn’t want a child with my savage blood. But when we all returned here with Froi, the strangest thought occurred to me. It was during those times I’d take Froi out to the Forest Dwellers. His bond with Tesadora was strong, in a strange way. He had the same shaped eyes. More than anything I … I felt something strong towards him and I knew she felt it as well and I started to believe …’
‘… that he was yours?’ Finnikin asked.
Perri nodded. ‘Strange, but yes. I convinced myself that all those years ago she had given birth to a child and perhaps passed it on to a traveller. Eighteen years ago in this kingdom it wasn’t rare for the forest to be a path for foreigners. I didn’t know what to think with Froi, except I honestly believed he was ours.’
‘Until we interrogated Rafuel of Sebastabol in the spring?’ Finnikin asked.
Perri nodded. ‘When he told the story of their day of weeping.’
There was bitterness and self-disgust in his expression.
‘Tesadora had spoken the truth. And, of course, meeting Gargarin of Abroi and Lirah of Serker confirmed that Froi didn’t belong to us.’
‘And when you finally spoke of it, what did she say?’ Isaboe asked.
He shook his head with regret. ‘We never spoke of it. Now all I feel is shame and confusion. She would have been … broken after the loss and I broke her even more. At the time she lost the child, she had no one. I try hard not to speak ill of the Forest Dwellers. Most of them are dead and I’ll never forget the
way they died. It took me a long while to get the stench of burnt flesh out of my head. But they treated her poorly all her life. Even before we were at war with Charyn, they hated the idea of tainted blood. Her mother made no apology about the foreigner she had taken as a lover. The way the Forest Dwellers saw it, Tesadora didn’t belong to them … she still feels it, and it pains me.’
He looked up at Isaboe. ‘I want her to be happy … yet I’ve never known her to be so confused and sad … and euphoric at the same time as she is now. And it’s all about you … and the Other.’
Isaboe stiffened. ‘You met her?’ she asked. ‘Quintana of Charyn?’
He nodded.
‘And?’
Perri retrieved an envelope from his pocket.
‘It’s for the Priestking … from Tesadora. It speaks of strange things.’
Isaboe stared at it and then retrieved an envelope from her pocket.
‘It’s the letter Finnikin gave me from Froi to the Priestking. I’m presuming no less strange.’
Perri handed his letter to Isaboe and she placed the two together.
‘Describe it,’ she said quietly. ‘You feel it, as well. Whatever Tesadora feels for the girl, you do, as well.’
Perri looked away.
‘I won’t judge you,’ Isaboe said.
He grimaced. ‘It’s a recognition of … I can’t explain. It’s as if I know her, not in the realness of our world, but in here,’ he said, pointing to his chest. ‘The way I believed I knew Froi.’
Isaboe stared at the letters, her fingers tracing the writing on both envelopes.
She looked up, and Finnikin saw tears in her eyes. He knew she missed both Froi and Tesadora.
‘I get a sense that the Priestking knows more than he’s let on,’ she said. ‘It may be quite a supper we have tonight.’
It was late in the night when Isaboe retrieved the two letters and handed them to the Priestking. They had enjoyed a simple meal with Abian and August, and Finnikin was grateful for their presence in his family’s life. With them, he and Isaboe weren’t the Consort or Queen. They were the children of people once loved by these friends. Tonight there had been talk of the dead King and Queen that brought a laugh, instead of tears.