Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
AUDREY
With all due respect, High Magelord, I am kept busy every moment of every day and a lot of moments in my night time, too, just with the running of the Academy.
Our Pureshields are constantly on the lookout for anything, but the list of people who know how to harvest Glow is very short.
I’ve been unable to definitively identify any one of the mages I suspect.
—First Guidelord, Luis to High Magelord, Bearer of All, Gautier the First
La’Angi Keep
This time, I heard Thomas’ steps coming up my tower long before he reached us. Isolde wiped the sweat from her face and passed Chay some water. I felt like I’d been up all night drinking.
I hadn’t. It had been hours since I’d learned.
I had one.
Year.
Only one.
Thomas’ expression didn’t soften when he found me waiting for him. He bowed, same as ever, and offered me another tube. “It’s good that information is flowing now, my lady,” he said gruffly.
But all I could hear was my father’s staccato steps approaching. His pace never altered. Not until he stopped at my door.
Thomas was gone. Isolde was at my shoulder, peering around my arm, her brow furrowed.
I forced myself to look.
“Chay.” He’d worn that crest on his shield only months ago. Relief rushed through me. “Chay, it’s from Raider’s Ban.”
He was already beside me, crowding close, craning his head. “What news?”
Isolde made a bored noise, set down her drink, and vanished.
My fingers were graceless. My mind was more so. I hadn’t been able to make out the meaning yet, but… “It’s signed by Darrius.” He’d be so relieved.
Had he heard Darrius’ bootheels and felt safety?
“He’s alive.” His head fell to my shoulder. “He’s alive. Or he was, when this was sent.”
I glanced at the date at the top, shaking my head. “It’s post-plague,” I told him, trying to skim the information. It crowded in my head like traffic trying to pass through the market. I dropped my hands and let the scroll flop against my thighs, resting my forehead against his for a moment.
How isolated had I felt until now?
The entire world could’ve been dead. They could’ve been, but they weren’t.
I blew out a long breath and tried to gather my thoughts, lifting the note again and taking my time on each word, letting the information soak in. One person and one cart at a time—that’s how you eased market traffic.
“He’s writing to everyone,” I told Chay, knowing he’d been waiting in terror for news about the family of his heart. “It’s an official letter enquiring after our safety. He names you.”
He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. It felt like a plea for closeness, but in that moment I needed to let my eyes finish their journey over the hand-written letter. “He wrote it himself,” I realized. “This isn’t an Inker’s work.”
“Kadan?” Chay asked, the word rough.
I shook my head, re-focusing on the scant information.
Reports indicate the population to the south-east has suffered the heaviest losses…
I skimmed from point to point, feeling my heart rate pick up again and the world blur before I forced myself to slow, to breathe.
My hands trembled. Kadan wasn’t my friend, and there were no steps outside the door, but my hands were shaking.
…didn’t reach beyond the Yeehruhung River.
Deaths within Raider’s Ban to the plague are nonexistent.
“He says no one in ’Ban got sick,” I offered.
I heard him release the breath he’d imprisoned and felt him pull away. His hand went to his mouth as he paced away from me.
My head spun at the ramifications of that news. “Where’s the Yeehruhung River?”
Chay glanced over, eyes overbright. “South of Raider’s Ban. About a seven-day ride, six on the road. Why?”
“He says the plague didn’t pass the river.”
He looked at me as if he couldn’t quite make sense of the words. My belly twisted. I’d written to Yasmine more times than I wanted to count. I’d even sent some of those missives. I’d got naught back.
Ignoring that wound was easier than acknowledging it.
I offered him the parchment so he could get his own proof, but he shook his head, laughing a little, and waved at his eyes. “I can’t read this script, Embers. Whitehoof.” He scrubbed his face. “They’re alive. They’re alive and untouched.”
And they had wheat. I looked down at the parchment in my hands and thought of the people I’d need to inform of this news. They’d had some losses, he’d said, in the south-east. A few dozen. That was it. That was the extent.
Dozens.
I’d seen more than dozens of carts roll out of this city laden with our dead.
The rush of envy and anger took me off-guard. From Darrius I got an update. From my father?
A threat.
One year.
“I need to write a response,” I said, setting myself an achievable goal.
Except how could I begin to tally our dead? No one had a clear number. Who’d been lost to the flurry of violence in the docks, the fear? Who’d died of the cold or the hoarders taking all they had?
“I just need a moment,” he said, the words thick. “I’ll be down soon.”
I hesitated, but he’d said he wanted time and the urge to do was an itch under my skin.
I turned and went down the stairs, throwing a shawl over my shoulder to conceal at least the top half of what I wore when training: simple clothes Isolde had sourced for just this purpose that would’ve had my etiquette teacher fainting on the spot.
At my desk, I drew out a fresh, narrow piece of parchment, and wondered if she’d lived.
I should’ve had Allison write the response, but Darrius had hand-written it, not because they’d lost their Inker but because…
Because he was scared for Chay.
There were no footsteps outside my door.
For the esteemed Count Darrius of Raider’s Ban, and his staff. I paused, my quill shaking over the paper. I didn’t know his Inker’s name.
I wasn’t supposed to be writing this. I wasn’t supposed to be in this position, in charge of a city on the edge of collapse. When would I have learned his Inker’s name?
We do not have a proper tally of dead and may never be able to count these numbers, as the situation in La’Angi has been complex. I dipped the quill back in the pot, not because it needed ink but to reassure myself. I was overstepping. I was so far outside of where I was supposed to be right now.
There was only one person he cared about.
With the support of Sirs Chay and Thomas, we have maintained control of the city. There. He’d have his answer.
I wondered if he’d fall back, tears in his eyes, too.
Isolde chose that moment to sweep back into the room, the basket in her arms overflowing with skeins of wool. “What?” she asked me bluntly.
“Raider’s Ban wasn’t touched by the plague,” I said, shaking my head a little, trying to imagine how anywhere could be the same as it had been at the start of the winter.
She paused, brows furrowing. “Interesting. That might tip the nation’s power balance.”
My mind went to the cold cellars full of stolen cheese and apples I didn’t want to use for cider. “Their horseflesh is only as valuable as the market is strong,” I said, because it was true.
“The market, the walls, the lines of pikemen, the lances their infantry cut, and the arrows they fletched,” she agreed dryly. As she spoke, a chill went up my spine.
If the rest of the country was as weak as we were…and Raider’s Ban was at full strength…
There were so many unknowns, but that worry melted in with all the others to soak into my already-tight muscles.
Would Darrius take the city and give it to Chay?
I had to push the thought away, because hot on its heels was the next question: what would Chay do with me, given the opportunity?
The tip of my quill had gone dry, so I wet it again and scratched out critical information. Survivors, our status. Mayhap I overshared, telling the Count how weak we were, but if he was at full strength, and truly Chay’s friend, then I could only hope it would be safe.
He’d been safe so far.
I signed it with a flourish that was becoming so familiar I didn’t need to focus on it any longer, then sat there.
I should have shown the council. I shouldn’t act myself.
Shame curled, dark and hot, in my limbs.
I didn’t want to ask the council and do the sensible thing.
I wanted to believe in these men Chay loved.
If roles were reversed…
Chay’s sword-belt chimed. I glanced up at the stairs. He’d pulled on his black tabard and looked more or less composed.
“I’ve written what I need,” I told him. “There’s space yet. You can add to it, if you’d like.”
He froze, one foot in the air, as if the idea was almost too much. Hope, grief, fear and excitement…it was all there in his face.
He had something outside of La’Angi.
I had one year.
I forced myself to be patient while he regained his equilibrium, his eyes locked on the precious parchment belly-up across my desk. He stopped beside me, his gaze running over the impersonal words written in the most personal fashion, his throat bobbing.
One big hand reached slowly over to the note before me. I drew in a breath as he opened the paper that wanted to curl up on itself. He used only one strong finger, his touch gentle.
“What do I say?” he asked, and the words were raw. “Who will see this?”
That was the key question and I pushed away my misgivings. “Allison.”
His eyes finally lifted to me. Tears swam there again. “She isn’t oathbound. She’s an apprentice.”
“And she’d be bound to my father even if she was sworn in,” I acknowledged, while keeping my other doubts to myself.
He nodded and blew out a breath. I offered him the quill, and, to my surprise, he took it.
In my seat, he had to sit forward so his sword would hang at a comfortable angle. His penmanship was what my tutors would’ve called unrefined. I liked all of his bold, honest lines.
Thinking of you all, he wrote, then signed his name and put the quill down before he reached for me.