Chapter Fifty-Four Thera
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Thera
The body of Felnir Skyrnrak, King of Vorunvahl, was laid upon the deck of a captured Nihlvarian warship.
Those of his subjects who had perished in the battle were arrayed around him before the vessel was unmoored from the Citadel’s docks.
Carried into the Great Fjord by the morning tide, it floated free of the harbour for a distance of fifty paces whereupon Thera, Queen of the Ascarls, and her brother Guthnyr Arynrayd, the Bright Blade, raised bows.
The blazing shafts they loosed trailed smoke in shallow arcs to plunge onto the ship where the flames caught quickly on oil-soaked kindling.
The burning ship drifted into the main current to be carried towards the sea.
The column of smoke lingered until fire inevitably ate away the ship’s timbers and it sank.
Guthnyr and Thera remained to watch the last grey tendril sublime into the sky and then for hours afterwards until the sun had dipped and stars speckled the heavens.
Thera had rarely known her brother remain silent for so long.
But then, reticence was not the only change in him.
Perched beside him on a cluster of rocks at the wharf’s end, she looked upon a man who had aged considerably in the months since their last meeting.
The vestiges of boyhood were gone now, scraped away by hardship and war.
It saddened her, engendering a sense that she had lost not one brother to this dreadful business, but two.
She turned at the sound of a dirgeful cant rising from the contingent of Vorunvahl warriors clustered on the docks.
Phrased in their peculiar, lilting accent, the words were hard for Thera to parse, but she assumed it to be a funeral ode of some sort.
She found her slain brother’s menda to be a strange lot.
A small number appeared normal, or at least as normal as they could be after a lengthy trial and recent battle.
But most exhibited the kind of grief at Felnir’s passing she thought best reserved for only their most cherished loved ones.
They wept for hours, calling out to the Altvar at the unfairness of their king’s demise.
Some even named it a crime and swore to henceforth shun the gods for all their days.
These most ardent of her brother’s subjects, one might even call them worshippers, had to be restrained from throwing themselves into the Great Fjord when he commenced his final voyage.
“I don’t envy you their company,” Thera ventured to Guthnyr, hoping to extract at least one word from him this night. “For the journey ahead,” she added when he offered no response.
“One I intend to make, Thera,” he muttered. “So I’ll thank you for no more attempts to persuade me otherwise.”
“I merely mentioned that Ascarlia currently lacks a Vellihr of Justice,” she said, which at least succeeded in drawing a thin laugh from his lips.
“I always knew you would be a queen one day,” he said. “But never thought you would rule alone.”
“I am not alone,” Thera said, thinking of Lynnea. “And the offer will stand as long as I wear the crown, should you ever make your way home again.”
Guthnyr’s hand moved to the cloth-wrapped item resting on the rocks at his side.
The Sword of the Altvar had exhibited no more light since its wielder’s passing.
As far as any eye could tell it was now simply a sword, albeit with an unnaturally keen edge and blade free of all scratches.
Even so, Guthnyr refused to touch it with his bare hand.
“Once I’ve delivered this,” he said. “And told Sygna…” He trailed off, gaze drifting to the horizon where the smoke of their brother’s pyre no longer rose.
Throughout the years since their parting, mention of Sygna had always brought a pang to Thera’s chest. It hurt to be reminded of something lost, something she had, for so long, deluded herself to have been stolen.
Now she felt only a faint echo of that pain, finding it supplanted by the sorrow she knew would overwhelm Sygna upon hearing Guthnyr’s news.
“Be sure to convey my best wishes,” Thera said. “As one queen to another. And tell her I too hope to one day visit her realm. Thanks to the wayfinders we rooted out of this place, the Fire Islands are no longer the barrier they once were.”
“I’ll tell her.”
Sensing a desire to linger in him, she rose, clasped his shoulder and began to make her way towards the Great Wolf, pausing when he spoke her name.
“A realm entire sits before you,” he said, gesturing to the city and the fjord.
“Shorn of its monarch and in dire need of leadership. Will you not claim it?”
She lowered her gaze for a moment, assailed once more by Ossgrym’s parting words: Burn it all down.
“I believe I have seen enough of this realm,” she told her brother, deciding not to add a more truthful answer: If I stay I may be tempted to fulfil the Ironbones’ wish.
Even after all they have suffered, these people arouse no sympathy in me.
“Besides,” she said. “That woman who marched at your side, my Tielwald tells me she is already busy gathering power to herself. Apparently, she sits quite comfortably in the Vortigurn’s hall. ”
“They could do worse,” Guthnyr said. “If there is one thing Deyna knows well, it’s power.”
“And have you no desire to rule at her side? You would be a king.”
“That was always Felnir’s ambition, not mine. Also, while Deyna harbours some affection for me, I’ve a sense it wouldn’t last should I prove a rival.”
“You command an army. She doesn’t. Any true power here would seem to rest with you.”
Guthnyr shook his head. “The Morvek are already returning to their lands. I think they found the taste of vengeance more bitter than sweet. Also, they don’t like how this place smells.
As for the Travka, having received the loot they were promised, most have little desire to linger, save the more capable fighters among them whom Deyna has already bribed with the Vortigurn’s treasury.
Whether she’ll call herself a queen in the end, I don’t know.
But this land is now hers, and I think enough blood has been spilt over it already. ”
“As long as she stays on her side of the Fire Islands, I have no further quarrel with this land or its people. Be so good as to tell her that before you leave.”
“I shall. Take good care of Jolnyr and Behsla for me. They have suffered much, but also earned much. I would ask that you reward them with comfort and a quiet life.”
Thera nodded and began to turn away once more, but found herself unable to take the first step towards the Great Wolf.
Suddenly, she was not a queen but a girl again, standing before her great-grandfather to hear the tale of her parents’ demise.
Yet now, there was no one to take her home but herself.
No one to answer to but herself. She could feel the tug of Lynnea’s love and knew it should be enough, but in that moment, all she felt was lost.
Feeling Guthnyr’s arms close about her, she dropped the dreadaxe and pulled him close.
Burying her head in his chest she wept the tears that hadn’t fallen when their brother’s ship burned and carried him to the Halls of Aevnir.
She wept for Gelmyr bleeding his last upon the Great Wolf’s deck.
She wept for the folk of the Outer Isles subjected to slaughter and pillage.
For Veilwald Synghild and the children she had been forced to execute.
And for the Ironbones and all the other souls lost to battle.
So many battles… Thera wept for a long time, then stayed in Guthnyr’s embrace.
When dawn came, she gathered up the dreadaxe and returned to her ship.
Standing at the prow with Lynnea at her side, they sailed with the morning tide, a fleet of battle-weary souls at their back and the rising sun before them, leading them home.