Asunder Read online

  “Bashara? What is it? You spoke so quickly, I didn’t understand.”

  Bashara took her Lady’s hands, breathless and hurried. “It’s Duke Korith, Lady. The messenger just arrived. Your husband will be here within the hour. He requires you to prepare for a journey, he says you are to travel with him when he leaves for Porthold in the morning.”

  Bethcelamin’s eyes widened. “What of Calder?” She kept her voice hushed, but the quiet did not disguise her fear. “Jayden cannot know he is here! If he finds him with us…”

  Bashara nodded, catching her lower lip between her teeth. She looked around the room, her mind racing over what needed to be packed for an extended journey. “Difficult enough to prepare for travel in such short time, Lady, but to see about Calder as well? How can we succeed?”

  Bethcelamin straightened her spine, and squeezed Bashara’s hand with a confident smile she didn’t quite feel. “We will, Bashara. We must. But we should begin immediately. See to the room, won’t you? I will inform Calder of our dilemma.”

  Bashara was not so certain, but she did as she was told. She was grateful for the improvement in Bethcelamin’s mood since the ranger’s arrival, despite the worry over hiding him.

  It was news of her daughter which had revived the Lady, of that Bashara was sure, though there was precious little of it. The girl’s name was Melody, that much lord Calder had shared. But he still distrusted Lady Korith’s position as wife to the Duke, and would tell her nothing as to where the child might be, or if she was safe. Her Lady insisted she understood, but Bashara knew Bethcelamin cried in the night with worry over the daughter she had never known.

  “Calder,” Bethcelamin said, re-entering her maid’s chamber. “We’ve received word that my husband is returning. He will arrive within the hour. He cannot find you here. Are you— Can you travel?”

  The ranger nodded as he stood up, stretching and testing his muscles. “You have restored me more than I thought possible,” he replied. “I will do as I must.”

  Attilus thumped his tail, sensing departure from the stone walls and thick carpets. He was eager for the journey. He longed for the trees and sky, for endless miles at the side of his master. It was all he could do not to bark.

  Bethcelamin scratched the dog’s ears, trying to calm him - and herself. “Calder, about Melody …”

  The ranger’s expression was apologetic. “I owe you my life, and I know I can never repay that debt. But understand … I cannot betray her, Beth.”

  Bethcelamin’s eyes clouded with tears. “I know. After what my husband has done to you—”

  “Not just me,” Calder said. “The people who sheltered her, the Dwellers. They were slaughtered, Beth. Every last one of them. Forgive my candor, but how did he find them? Who but you and I knew where she was?”

  Bethcelamin gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth. “Calder, I—”

  “Korith is hunting your daughter, with or without your help. He means to see her dead, and I will not risk it.”

  She let her tears fall, knowing the ranger was right. She had betrayed the Dwellers, though not intentionally. Her husband’s Chancellor had used some perverse power on her, and drawn from her the secret she’d sworn to take to her grave. He’d done other things as well, things she was supposed to have forgotten, things that haunted her each time she closed her eyes…

  Bethcelamin said none of that. “I understand. Just … if you see her … tell her I have not forgotten her?”

  Calder nodded. “She will know,” he assured her.

  Lady Korith composed herself, taking a deep breath and swiping at her damp cheeks with one hand. “I apologize for delaying you,” she said. She removed a bracelet from her delicate wrist, and pressed it into Calder’s hand. “Take this,” she said. “Sell it where you can, I pray that it helps. Bashara will fetch you some provisions and then see you safely to the woods. She knows the tunnels of this palace far better than I.”

  “Thank you,” Calder said, tucking the jewelry into his pocket. He almost wished he could trust her with what little information he did have. If he mentioned he’d last seen her daughter in Cabinsport, her own sources could join in the search, but …

  No. Fresh in his mind was Melody’s vision, the blood-soaked scene from within the Dweller’s glade. The command to slaughter the peaceful people could only have come from Korith, and only Bethcelamin had known where they were. He would tell her nothing further.

  “Can I help at all?” he asked.

  Lady Korith turned to Bashara’s bed and stripped the linens.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “He just can’t know you were here.” Her hands shook as she balled up the sheets and threw them in the corner, imagining what her husband would do if he learned of their deception.

  Calder retrieved the thick woolen blanket the women had placed beside the bed for Attilus, and refolded it so the hound’s short red hairs did not show before tossing it on top of the sheets, then followed her into the larger chamber.

  Bashara had already stripped the linens from the bed she had been sharing with her Lady. “I will bring these with me when I go to the kitchens, Lady, but your clothes—"

  “I will help her,” Calder said.

  “Hurry, Bashara. You can tend to the other sheets tonight, the women would ask too many questions.” Bethcelamin pointed at the trunk in the corner of the room. “Calder, can you bring that to me?”

  He tested his muscles, and discovered that despite the persistent pain in his back, he was not quite as weak as he felt. He brought the trunk and opened it, and they loaded it with gowns and shoes in silence. They were just closing the lid when Bashara returned with the provisions.

  “We must hurry,” she breathed. “They say the Duke will process through the gardens. I have to get you out before the soldiers line the walls, m’lord.” She handed him the sack, and a bundle of cloth. “A shirt from the laundry,” she explained.

  “Thank you, Bashara.” Lady Korith waited until Calder had shrugged into the shirt before quickly embracing him once more. “Be safe, old friend.”

  “Lady, you are to be there to greet the Duke, you must make haste.” Bashara gave Attilus some fresh meat she had snuck from the kitchen, and led the way to the back stairs.

  The thought of seeing Jayden again after witnessing what he had done to Calder churned Bethcelamin’s stomach, but there was no other option. She wanted to weep. Instead, she splashed cool water from the basin on her face and hands. She wanted to run after Calder and beg him to take her with him. Instead, she picked up her brush and pulled it through her hair until the tresses shone. She would do what she must.

  She would go to the garden that reeked of lilac regardless of how she begged for the heady plants to be removed, and she would wait for the man who hunted her daughter, and she would smile and pretend she did not know.

  She would take his hand and tell him she had missed him. She would say she was pleased that he had chosen to take her with him on his next journey, and he would not hear a word she said, because it was her duty to listen.

  Bethcelamin scanned the room once more for any trace of the ranger’s presence. Finding none, she hurried out of the room in a rustle of skirts.

  7

  Phelwen Semaj was angry.

  He was rage without form. The strength of his emotion rippled through the wraiths that surrounded and served him, driving them to the edges of the chamber.

  The girl had a weapon.

  It was no simple steel blade, no, this weapon shone with a power unseen since his own time, something old and dangerous. He had seen it through the eyes of his minions, had a moment to sense its power before she had used it to cut them down. He seethed.

  Why would she, a creature of magic like himself, turn to enchanted steel to fight him?

  Semaj paused. Wisdom, he thought. She knows my servants are drawn to her power, so she refuses to use it.

  It would do her no good. He had other ways to track her, to lead his minions
directly to her so she could be killed before she became a true threat. She couldn’t escape the notice of the vermin that served him, so dark and subtle that she wouldn’t even sense them watching her. Neither could the man, the warrior he had chosen to serve as his vessel, so recently defended by the girl with the sword.

  There were more than wraiths and dead men in the Witherin. Both the girl and the warrior had encountered the rats and spiders before, down in his tunnels. The vermin were his, just as the snakes and beetles and burrowing moles were his. Not all of them were large enough to attract notice, but even the smallest of the twisted, corrupted creatures were connected to him. They made excellent spies.

  Semaj was not yet at full strength, but the time for action had come.

  We begin, he told his servants - all of them, from the smallest spider to the freshest corpse, and the chorus of consciousness around him surged forward with dull, eager hunger. Up, he commanded several of them. Find her. Bring him.

  Get into position, he told the rest. Soon, you will build my armies. We will rise as one. Go, and be ready.

  They scattered, plodding towards the passages that would take them to the endless tunnels which opened to the surface with very specific gates of power, placed over a thousand years ago.

  The girl had found one of those gates, once, she and the warrior and the boy. She had not been as strong then, but neither was he. His connection to his attendants was weaker then. This time, however, his servants would succeed.

  A unified attack would sow chaos, and each new wave of the freshly dead would swell his ranks as it had in the past. There were none - save perhaps the girl - who could defend against him. Not even she could be everywhere, however. When his servants rose up they would be everywhere at once. His army would grow slowly at first, but by the time he claimed his human form, he would be unstoppable.

  In the meantime, his vermin would scatter across the surface, and he would see what they saw. Through them, he would know where the girl and the warrior were. Sword or no sword, the warrior’s body would be his to possess, the girl would die, and his armies would grow with every human slain. His time was nearly at hand.

  8

  Melody watched Jovan leave, heartsick and cold. He hated her, and she couldn’t fault him for it. She had failed him. It didn’t matter what they had been through together, Kaeliph was dead because of her. So was everyone else, it seemed. Jovan’s brother. The children’s parents. Foley. The Dwellers. No wonder he didn’t want her to touch him.

  She sank to her knees under the weight of it, barely able to breathe through the sobs that shook her. A stray breeze lifted her hair, the icy wind reminding her that her dress was once more shredded to her waist, torn by the creature that had nearly caught her before Jovan miraculously appeared. The twins would be cold too, she thought, scrubbing the tears from her cheeks with palms still dirty from the fall she’d taken earlier.

  Sitting back, she took several deep breaths, trying not to gag at the smell of the dead things on either side of her. They couldn’t stay here. Melody stood and turned, relieved to see the children sitting together beside her pack. They watched her with wide, uncertain eyes as she made her way to them and knelt by the bag.

  It’s all right, she tried to reassure them. She reached in for an apple, something to distract them from what they’d just witnessed while she tried to salvage her dress enough for them to keep walking. Her hand found only cloth, and when she rummaged deeper, a small square bundle. She wrinkled her brow.

  Melody hesitantly summoned light to her staff, and by it she realized this was not the bag she’d brought with them from Foley. It was Jovan’s. Hot tears stung the corners of her eyes as she pulled out Kaeliph’s neatly-mended trousers, and one of Jovan’s shirts. Her bag, she saw, was behind the children.

  The clothes would be too big for her, Melody thought, but they would cover more than what remained of her dress. She doubted Jovan would be back for them.

  It took little time for her to change, tearing another strip from the ruined skirt to use as a belt for the pants and rolling up the too-long legs. The smell of Jovan was on the fabric of the shirt, and she used one sleeve to wipe away the last stray tears of regret she intended to allow herself.

  They needed to go, she couldn’t waste any more time. She reached into Jovan’s bag to see what else might be useful, and pulled out the leather-wrapped square. Her chest tightened in immediate recognition.

  It was her father’s journal, there was no question. Melody hadn’t thought about it since arriving in Foley, with all that was happening - it had been in her pack, which she’d left after she and Jovan … After Garen had … Melody swallowed, hard. Even worried to distraction about her and his brother, Jovan had known she would want it, and kept it for her.

  She offered a silent prayer of thanks and tucked the journal in alongside the children’s clothes and food. After a moment’s thought, she put Jovan’s empty pack in the bag as well.

  “Time ah go?” Kendon searched her face, and when she nodded, he stood and helped his yawning sister to her feet.

  They were both so brave, after everything— Melody pulled the children into her lap, hugging them tightly.

  Oh Goddess, she whispered deep in her heart, burying her face against the twins’ curly blonde halos. There was so much - too much, too much guilt and fear and pain that seemed like it would never end. Please, I don’t know what to do.

  But she did know, didn’t she? She had always known. She would go on. Go on as she had done when the Dwellers were all slaughtered and left to rot in their glade; go on as she had done when Calder was taken from her, leaving her with strangers. She must do what must be done, and nothing else mattered.

  The babies let out an enormous yawn as they began to pick their way through the tangles of underbrush, refusing to let go of Melody as she followed the unfailing blue glow of Aellielle’s magic. Here was not the place and now was not the time for a camp, she thought, keeping them moving. She would not let them pause until they were far from the stinking bodies of the twice-dead, not until the sliver of the moon rode the sky high overhead.

  Kedra was snoring softly in her arms and Kendon could barely walk straight by the time Melody could go no farther. Her empty, aching exhaustion had crossed into numbness and back to pain again. It was too much, she could do no more. She looked around, unsatisfied, but it was the best she could do. Maybe she could walk a circle for protection. Maybe prayer wouldn’t count as magic. Maybe it wouldn’t draw the attention of anything … impossible.

  She spread the small blanket she had taken from the children’s home on the soft leaves and placed Kedra on it gently, so as not to wake her. She guided Kendon to sit beside his sister. Surely they would be asleep before she finished walking the circle.

  “‘Ama?” The small, sleepy voice nearly broke her heart, and Melody turned back. Kedra was blinking up at her, awake now, looking around as if she thought she was dreaming. Kendon, suddenly seeming ageless, took his sister’s hand.

  “No ‘Ama,” he said. “Edidy.”

  Melody’s hand flew to her mouth as tears again stung her eyes. Would she ever stop crying? No ‘Ama, he had said. No mama. These babies had no mother, and it was her fault. And now she was all they had. Oh, Goddess.

  Melody sank to her knees on the blanket, pulling the children to her and nuzzling her face in their hair. She summoned the magic, just a single silent breath of it, and it came on swift wings.

  “Sleep,” she whispered, so softly it might have been a butterfly’s dream, and the children slept.

  Her face was soaked with tears as she walked the circle around them, over and over as she had done on the beach before, still with the same aching prayer in her heart. Please, keep us safe. How could it work, though? How could Goddess even bear to listen to her after what she had done—

  She prayed regardless. Please, keep us safe.

  When it was finished, Melody wept as though her heart would break from the weight it bo
re. The pain throughout her body was a constant, but the suffocating agony of her sorrow came in waves. She was no replacement for a mother, she thought. She was no fit guardian for anyone … her silent sobs tapered off and Melody felt a warm touch in her mind. There were no words, no images, just that single brush of a touch – but it was enough.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. No, she was not a mother. But a woman who was not her own mother had raised her with love, and she could give no less to the babies in her care.

  Suddenly she was not tired at all, regardless of the long miles she had walked and the clenching ache in her muscles, head, and heart. Now seemed like the perfect time to reconnect with something older than her, something she had only just come to understand.

  Melody pulled her father’s journal from her pack. The last time she’d looked at the pages was in the Haven, and the magic there had aided her understanding of the symbols on the pages. Kaeliph had taught her much, but as she looked at the words now, many of them still refused to release their secrets.

  Melody closed her eyes and touched the parchment, feeling the ever-present power tingling in her fingertips. She hesitated— she could do this, without question. However awful her actions in Foley had been, a door inside her had opened to power she hadn’t even thought to imagine. Would using it attract attention, though? That was the question.

  She took another deep breath, visualizing the safety of the circle she had walked, the power that kept anything unwelcome at bay. If the circle kept things out, then surely it could keep things in …including more power. Melody released the magic in her hands and directed it into the journal, imagining it filling in the blanks and sharpening the blurred meanings until the pages were bursting with clarity.

  She silently thanked Jovan for keeping it safe, and Kaeliph for teaching her the language, and Goddess for making it all possible. She opened her eyes and began to read.