Chapter 12
Melia
Melia spent a restless night in her room, dozing off, dreaming of Syr and then waking up to check if Ferisa or Amron had returned, but neither of them showed up. At dawn, a light scratching on the door woke her from a nightmare of bloody blades and bodies hanging by a roadside.
When she opened the door, a little page bowed. “My lady, you told me to wake you at dawn.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Ferisa’s note lay crumpled under her pillow. Meet me in the cherry orchard at dawn.
Melia washed her face and, unwilling to call the maids, pulled on a dress she could lace up on her own, braided her hair, grabbed a hooded cloak, and ran into the dim, empty corridor.
The sleepy guards leaning on the walls barely noticed her as she rushed past. They must have thought her just another lady returning from nightly adventures.
As she rushed down the stairs, the annoyance at being summoned like a common servant grew in her chest, but she dared not ignore Ferisa, not when she was obviously representing her father. Roderi treated Melia like a clever, well-trained hound: useful and praised as long as it obeyed every command.
The sky above the garden was pale blue, tinted with pink towards the east, and the early morning air had a salty bite to it.
Melia passed the orangery, the roses, the exotic trees, and ran on the graveled paths towards the cherry trees tucked in a corner beside a tall wall, their thick green leaves providing a cover from curious eyes.
The garden was empty at this early hour, the stone benches freezing cold, the grass covered in dewdrops.
“Where are you?” Melia whispered.
“Here.”
A dark shadow stepped out from behind a tree trunk and Melia gasped. Ferisa’s eyes were arrowfoil-bright and a bloody gash ran down her left cheek. “What have you done?”
“Oh, you’ll hear about it in the morning, don’t worry.
” The corners of Ferisa’s mouth twisted in an unpleasant smile.
“Your father thought it would be good to stir a bit of trouble before the main event, shaking the smug bastards. A group of Seragian mercenaries attacked Prince Amron last night as he foolishly returned to the palace without his armed escort.”
Melia’s lungs cramped, refusing to take a breath. Everybody knew the crown prince and his retinue were out last night in Abia, but she was the one who’d confirmed where they were going, she was the one who’d told Ferisa the name of the establishment.
It was all irrelevant at the moment, though. “Is he alive?”
“He’s fine,” Ferisa said. “He got away.”
Melia couldn’t recognize this Ferisa. Her companion had been ruthless but clever, a priestess conducting her priestly business behind the scenes.
A subtle shadow of death, not this vulgar, garish mercenary.
She wanted to ask what had happened after she left Syr, what her father had done to Ferisa, but all she said was, “Why Amron?”
“By chance. We were waiting for the other one.”
Melia recognized her father’s schemes when she saw them. The falsehood, the thirst for blood, the manipulation—it was all him. Elmar had no power to change this deal, but what if the king believed the Seragians had broken the truce?
The implications of Seragians attacking the crown prince a day before his wedding to the emperor’s daughter burst in her mind like blood from a pig bladder.
What was she doing here, in this garden, pretending this was just a casual conversation, pretending she could just go back to court and act normal?
It felt so strange, being able to see both sides of the story, and yet being unable to connect them. Like images in a broken mirror. This is who I am with Amron, and this is who my father expects me to be.
“You should have told me about your plans,” Melia said.
“Why? So that you could run to your husband and warn him?” Ferisa retorted. “You forgot to ask who your husband was with.”
“I thought you said he was alone.”
“No, I said he was without his armed escort.” Another smile. “It might be of interest to you that he was snuggling with a girl in a dark alley. A stunningly beautiful girl who screamed like a mad peacock and brought half the guards in Abia upon us.”
One of the girls from Amril’s party? A whore? That didn’t sound like Amron. “I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do. I know you well, you can’t hide your thoughts from me.” Ferisa approached her and laid her palm on Melia’s cheek. “I don’t begrudge you enjoying your husband, little raven. It’ll all be over soon anyway.”
A sudden urge to punch Ferisa made Melia’s hands twitch, but what good would that do? Melia closed her eyes, feeling she’d never woken from her nightmare. “What’s next?”
“We wait for your father. The decision is his. But be prepared for violence”
It felt like a game, like some dark fable they whispered to each other.
Two desperate women keeping each other warm in the drafty corridors of Syr.
A fantasy of revenge devised by two helpless nobodies, whose pain pushed them to dream about setting fire to the kingdom, shaking the great empire.
Futile daydreaming, born out of anger. Grand schemes, as empty as her father’s halls. And yet.
“Ferisa,” Melia said, taking her hand, warm and familiar.
Here in Abia she looked as strange to Melia as Melia must have looked to her, but they were still the same people who’d spent so many nights alone in the dark, whispering secrets, holding each other tight.
“Amron took me to see the border forts after the wedding.”
“So you saw what the Seragians do to us?”
“Yes. No. I talked to the women there.” She remembered the dim kitchen, the young woman with her child. “They told me it is not us against the Empire, that the people on both sides of the border are the same—”
“I spent five years on the border, healing people in the villages and forts, helping them pass to the other side,” Ferisa cut her off. “And you’re trying to explain it to me?”
“They said it was just the soldiers and the brigands. They cared nothing about the king or the emperor—”
Ferisa’s hand landed on her shoulder, as if she wanted to shake her. “They’re camp followers, bed-warmers, whores. Of course all men look the same to them, as long as they pay them and keep them warm.”
“No, that’s not—”
“Do you think they understand politics? History? Do you think they understand what honor is, earning their living on their backs and knees?”
“What do you know about honor?” growled Melia.
“Oh, yes, I’m baseborn filth, my lady. You know everything about it, obviously, so tell me, do you think the Seragians did not celebrate when they learned how heavy a blow they’d dealt to Roderi of Elmar?
Do you think they didn’t toast Rovin’s death?
Killing their greatest enemy’s heir, that must have been a massive achievement.
And then seeing his daughter marry into the very family that crawled before them begging for peace?
That must have felt like triumph, Melia.
They pulled our teeth out one by one. And now they’ll come here and watch us helpless and humiliated and congratulate themselves on their cleverness.
” Her fingers dug into Melia’s flesh, but her words hurt more.
“Tell me, when the emperor’s daughter steps off her ship today and looks you in the eye and smiles, how will that make you feel? ”
Melia tried to blink away the tears, but they spilled from the corners of her eyes, running down her cheeks, where she furiously rubbed them away. “Why are you saying this?” she asked. “I am constantly forced—by you, by my father—to go back and relive my pain.”
“What do you mean relive? The pain is always here, it never went away.”
The sunlight in the garden dimmed and the world slowed down as if it had been submerged in deep water.
Shadows rushed to swallow Melia and Ferisa, and when she looked at her companion, Melia saw that she was barely more than a shadow herself.
A dark husk; a flaking, hollow shell with nothing but a ball of fury burning inside her chest like a fiery lump of coal.
When Melia looked down, she saw that she was the same, a shadow with a blazing heart.
It occurred to her that maybe they were already dead, it was just that their bodies hadn’t noticed it yet.
They had been infused with so much death that they must have perished a long time ago.
Melia never survived her silent sickness, the physicians were wrong, Ferisa was wrong.
The body she released from the stupor was just an animated cadaver.
And Ferisa, how devout was she to her goddess?
How much darkness had she swallowed, how many times had she crossed to the other side, until she became nothing but a burning shadow fueled by vengeance?
Tears now flowed down her cheeks freely and she didn’t try to stop them. What were a few salty drops in the dark water that surrounded them?
“There’s no going back, no setting things right,” Ferisa said. “It’s too late for that. All we can do is make them hurt as we hurt. Set this whole evil alliance on fire.”
Melia nodded. What choice did she have? It had all been decided a long time ago, when the first man raised his sword in vengeance.
“Your father will be here soon, and then we’ll strike.
” Ferisa cupped her wet face in her hands.
“His men are already in their positions, and you—you’ll help me deliver the crucial blow.
There will be no peace with the Seragians, no wedding, no kneeling before the murderers while our blood still drips from their fingers. ”
Melia put her hand on the back of Ferisa’s neck and pressed her forehead to Ferisa’s. They remained like that, in a mute vow, breathing in the same slow rhythm, until the light around them seeped back and the world sped up again.
Dark fog evaporated from Melia’s mind and, now certain of her purpose, she saw things with a new clarity.