Chapter 58
After three more days of travel, the walls of High Ardenia rose into view. Richard sighed at the sight of the pale stone with its red-and-gold banners.
Home.
And yet, his shoulders sagged under its weight.
“At last,” Malgrin said on the bench opposite. “A warm bath. A soft bed. A goblet—”
“An axe,” Agnes croaked. “To chop up my hopeless apprentices—”
“Now, really, my lady, do have some courtesy—”
Richard ignored them, his insides starting to coil.
Somewhere within those walls, Elara would be waiting, sharp-tongued and furious, and Corwin, no doubt, all the more bitter at Richard having left with Kaelen.
Briony perhaps might have come to forgive him by now—might even hug him and demand every detail of the trip.
The carriage halted a mile from the great Eastern Gate. Richard frowned as Joffrey appeared at the window, his face grave.
“Your Majesty,” Joffrey said. “Soldiers from the castle. They’ve brought Ashfall.”
Richard’s pulse quickened. He barrelled out of the carriage, his boots hitting the road just as the soldiers drew up—four of them, mounted, with Ashfall led on a long rein.
The grey destrier neighed the instant she saw Richard and lunged to nose at his shoulder.
“Easy.” Richard scratched the ridge under her forelock. “Yes, I have missed you also.”
He looked past the destrier’s ear to the foremost soldier, who dismounted. It was Lira—a broad, grey-haired lady with a weathered face.
“Speak.” Richard’s stomach churned all the worse on seeing her hesitate. Lira was a stout-hearted veteran. Very little disturbed her, and yet, she appeared frazzled.
“Your Majesty.” She bowed. “Last night, Princess Briony stole the military ledgers from the generals’ office. The troop numbers, the war plans, everything. She sneaked into the forest with it, sire, accompanied by Squires Eleanor and Godwyn.”
Richard’s eyes widened, and from his right, Kaelen swore.
“The generals were at the borders, sire,” Lira continued.
“And the Chief Mage had returned to the veil. So it was the Lord Commander who led the tracking party this dawn when the princess’s bed was found empty.
Lord Commander Dain found Princess Briony in Elderwood, in the midst of handing the ledgers to the harpy.
His party was ambushed by the Sanguis Order witches.
The harpy escaped with the ledgers. Twenty soldiers are dead, and Lord Commander Dain has been cursed with some spell of dark slumber.
” She spoke to Kaelen. “He is alive but sleeping. The Chief Healer has not left his side. She says it is a dark sleep and that she is wrenching at it with both hands, but it will not give.”
Richard felt faint. “Briony?”
Lira winced. “The witches took her.”
There was a ringing in Richard’s ears. Bells. Tolling bells from the square in Vexmara.
“The witches went west,” Lira said. “Princess Elara and Prince Corwin rode out four hours past with fifty soldiers. They are following the trail with the tracking gem, Your Majesty, and have left markers for you to follow should you be near.”
The road lurched, and he had to steady himself against Ashfall’s shoulder.
Briony. Briony. His sister in the hands of witches hungry for her blood. His baby sister—
“My king,” Kaelen said briskly. “Let us head after them.” A snarl etched his lips. “Let us spill blood and bring her home.”
The road steadied. Richard drew in a breath and met Kaelen’s determined eyes.
“Yes.”
* * *
The trees blurred past in green smears. Richard bent low over Ashfall’s neck and urged her faster.
Beside him, Kaelen rode hard, his cloak streaming, and behind them, Joffrey bellowed at the trailing soldiers to keep up.
Elara’s markers came thick along the path—a soldier’s shield pointing left, a crimson scarf knotted around a branch, an arrow sign singed into the moss at every fork.
West. West and west again. The sun climbed, and Richard’s thighs burned, and his mother’s voice kept returning to him—
“Here she is. My little star. My miracle child. Keep her safe, son. Do not let the dark take her.”
Richard swallowed down bile.
Why would Briony have stolen those ledgers? Had it been something she’d seen? The Wyrd Hinge? How had the harpy been able to come so close to the castle—
Richard drove his heels into Ashfall. As the trees opened into a field, he smelled smoke on the wind. He crested a low rise and saw a meadow ringed by Ardenian soldiers. In the meadow’s centre was a stone building—three stories tall and every aperture vomiting flame.
An abandoned healing hall, Richard realised. It now blazed like a forge, heat shimmering the air above it. Soldiers had drawn back to the meadow’s edge with their shields raised against their faces.
Ashfall slowed to a halt at the line, and Richard jumped off, ignoring the soldiers who saluted. He recognised Elara and Corwin’s riderless mounts at the front.
“Your Majesty—” A soldier stumbled forward, soot streaking his cheeks.
“Report,” Richard said as Kaelen landed beside him.
“Sire, we—we cannot get in. When we reached, we could hear the princess Briony screaming from within, and Princess Elara—well, she opened her hands and burned the whole building in a single breath. Spent almost every drop of her wellspring on it, sire—saw her sway. Then she and Prince Corwin ran inside, and we could not follow—the air burns our lungs at twenty paces. Even our fire mages cannot bat away the flames.”
Kaelen grabbed Richard’s arm. “Do not—”
Richard wrenched himself free and ran.
“No! My king!”
The grass crisped under Richard’s boots as he neared the door.
Drawing his sword, he shouldered through the hall’s singed doors.
Inside, the world was afire. Tapestries hung in burning rags.
Fire curled along the ceiling. Smoke hung thick in the air.
A charred body sprawled in the doorway of a side chamber, the flesh having melted off.
“Elara!” Richard bellowed. “Corwin! Briony!”
Another body at the corridor’s bend, this one with its bones showing white through cracked flesh. The wallpaper here was black.
“ELARA!”
The corridor opened into the teaching auditorium, with its tiered circle of long benches descending towards a central dais beneath a domed ceiling. Half the benches were on fire, and at least fifty smoking corpses lay strewn between them.
And on the dais were his kin.
Briony knelt in the centre of the platform, her dress smeared with blood, her face buried in Corwin’s chest. He was kneeling too, his arms wrapped around her, rocking her from side to side.
Elara stood at the edge of the dais, her face pasty and caked with sweat, her palms crackling with flames. They guttered as she turned her head—
“Oh, by every god.” The flames died altogether. “Brother.”
Richard raced down the steps between the benches. He gasped at the blood that covered the dais. “Briony—”
“Most of it is not hers.” Elara swayed on her feet, and Richard caught her around the waist. “They only needed a few drops—took it from a puncture in her palm, and she will not stop crying over it. But I have her now.” She straightened, pushing Richard away.
“So, you see, Brother, your presence was not required. There was a situation, and I handled it.”
Corwin raised his head from Briony’s hair and said indignantly, “We handled it, Sister. I cleaved through at least five who did not burn fast enough.”
“Yes, yes.” Elara snorted. “You are a hero, Corwin, and all the ballads shall sing of you.” She grinned viciously. “But it was I who saw a predicament and set it afire.”
For the first time, Richard noted the circle. It was drawn in blood, with Briony in the middle, accompanied by strange runes spaced about its rim.
A section of the dome’s plasterwork crashed into the upper benches, throwing up a fountain of orange sparks.
“We must go.” Richard sheathed his sword. “Quickly. The roof shall soon come down upon us—”
“I’m sorry!” Briony lifted her face from Corwin’s chest, and the terror carved into her features sent a chill up Richard’s spine. “I’m so sorry!” She keened, staring at Corwin. “You have to go. But I won’t let you go alone. I won’t, I’ll come with you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
Too late, Richard saw where the circle of blood had not been finished. A gap just by Briony’s knee. “Briony, wait!”
She slammed her palm onto the dais and jerked it to smear her blood across the gap. Every rune around the rim flared a livid green. The dais within the circle opened, the wood replaced by a glowing, viridescent portal.
Corwin and Briony fell through.
Richard reached in time to grab Corwin’s right forearm, the weight almost forcing him to his knees. Briony clung to Corwin, weeping into his neck.
“Take her!” Corwin yelled at Richard. “Hurry! Take—”
Vines erupted from the portal. Galdran’s vines, Richard recognised, despite the panic clogging his throat.
Green, thick and thorned, they whipped about Corwin’s arms and chest and hooked deep.
Corwin let out a pained cry as he was yanked further into the portal.
His back slammed against the circle’s edge, and blood burst from his mouth.
Briony screamed, hugging Corwin’s neck tighter.
“Elara!” Richard shouted, his arms feeling as if they were tearing apart.
She was suddenly there, staggering, reaching into the portal to wrench Briony away. As the girls tumbled backwards, rolling down the dais’s steps, Richard pulled Corwin’s hand harder. The vines that curled up to Corwin’s wrist ignored Richard, one even nuzzling Richard’s thumb.
“No!” Richard growled, tightening his grip on Corwin’s hand—now slippery with blood. “You will not have him! Do you hear me, Galdran?”
“Brother.” Corwin’s eyes were bloodshot. A vine had hooked into the meat of his left bicep, and another pierced his ribs. His yellow shirt was now a wet maroon.
“Hold on.” Richard hated the tremble in his voice. “I have you. I will not let you go. Hold on—”
Corwin’s teeth chattered, his face paler than Richard had ever seen. “Brother.”