Marcus

There hadn’t been any bottles of flaghaelan in the palace cellars, but Marcus had found a quite respectable brandy from the Transpale tucked in a cabinet underneath a stairway. He’d liberated the whole bottle, despite the scandalized look he got from the steward. Once the world had a pleasant rubberiness to it at the edges, he’d made his way to the Prince’s Tower, where Raesinia had once had her chambers. It was dark and silent now, having been looted during the revolution and not yet refurnished, and he slunk through the too-​empty rooms to the roof. There, on the chilly flagstones, was where Raesinia had regularly “escaped” from her own palace by throwing herself to the gravel below.

He leaned against the battlement, taking another swallow from the bottle and feeling it burn its way down his throat and into his churning stomach. After a few moments of silence, he coughed.

“Sothe,” he said, and then repeated it in a shout. “Sothe! Where are you? I know you’re watching me.”

There was nothing but silence.

“Sothe!” He thumped the stonework with one hand, and winced. “You want me to sit here screaming your name all night?”

Something shifted in the shadow of a crenellation. Sothe’s voice was soft. “You said you never wanted to see me again.”

“Well, things have fucking changed, haven’t they?” Marcus shook his head, sending the world spinning. “You found Winter.”

“I did.”

“And you found out he—​she—​was...” He couldn’t finish.

“Your sister. Ellie d’Ivoire.”

Saints and fucking martyrs. Just hearing the name out loud sent his heart racing, a mix of terror and anticipation and other emotions he didn’t understand. Ellie, he told himself, trying for discipline. My sister. Ellie. She’s alive. Winter is my sister.

It was no good. There were two people in his head. Ellie, four years old, smiling and clever. And General Ihernglass, enigmatic, competent, lethal in a crisis. A little girl and a grown man. A child and a soldier. Now the world was insisting they were one and the same.

Don’t be stupid, he told himself. What did you expect? That Ellie would still be four when you found her?

But logic was a thin reed to cling to. He kept trying to push the two images together, like forcing a jigsaw puzzle piece into a place where it didn’t fit, and they kept springing apart again.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

“You might have told me,” Marcus said. “That’s why you found her, isn’t it?”

The shadow shifted as Sothe nodded. “Once I became aware of her identity, I was... torn. I thought she deserved to make the choice herself.”

Marcus had to admit he couldn’t see the fault in that. Balls of the fucking Beast. Could Winter really have chosen not to tell me? Let me live the rest of my life not knowing? It would have been easier for her, wouldn’t it?

“So, now what?” Marcus said. “Your conscience is assuaged? You’ve redeemed yourself?” He snorted.

“My conscience was never the issue here, Marcus.” Sothe stepped out of the shadow, into the half-​light of the torches on the walls. “I don’t try to pretend I haven’t done terrible things, or that I can make up for that. A person’s life isn’t like a ledger book, where this much good cancels out that much bad and all debts are paid. I will always be the person who killed at Duke Orlanko’s command and never asked why.” She bowed her head. “All I can hope for is to be someone else as well.”

“And you think this helps?”

“I thought that I owed you the truth.”

“Does Winter know?”

“Know what?”

“What you did to my—​to our parents. That it was you who took her family away from her.”

“She does. I think she is... still trying to understand how to feel about me.”

Marcus leaned back against the wall, stone cool against his cheek. The bottle sloshed gently in his hand, but he suddenly wanted nothing more to do with it.

“What are you doing here?” he said. “Don’t tell me you think this makes us even.”

“I left after Janus resigned because I had unfinished business with Orlanko,” Sothe said. “And... because I thought that perhaps Raesinia would no longer need my help. I have returned because I was wrong.”

“What happened to Orlanko?”

“I killed him,” Sothe said matter-of-factly.

“Good,” Marcus muttered. He pushed himself back to his feet and turned to face her. “So, now what? I warned you—”

“That you would kill me if you saw me again.” Something flashed between them. A knife, stuck point ​down in the crack between two flagstones, still quivering from the force of the throw. Sothe stepped slowly out of the shadow, light sliding off her black-​clad form. “This is your chance. I will not abandon Raesinia, not now. If you wish to take your revenge, I offer you this opportunity.”

Marcus looked down at the knife. In his inebriated state, he doubted he was much of a threat to Sothe. No, let’s not mince words. I’m no threat to her when I’m at my best, not unless I’ve got a company of sharpshooters backing me up. He bent, with an effort, and pried the blade from the ground.

She watched him steadily, not even glancing at the weapon. Marcus shook his head.

“I can’t,” he said with a sigh. “You know I can’t.”

“I do.” Sothe’s lip quirked slightly.

“That hardly seems fair.” He flipped the knife around and handed it to her, hilt first. She took it and slid it into some hidden recess of her costume.

“I’m not in the business of fair,” Sothe said.

“I haven’t forgiven you,” Marcus said. “Just because I’m not willing to cut a woman down in cold blood doesn’t mean I can accept what you did.”

“I do not require your forgiveness,” Sothe said. “You and I are both devoted to Raesinia in our own ways. I hope that we can at least agree on that.”

Marcus nodded, letting out a breath that carried much of his tension with it. “Now what?”

“I am going to see Raesinia,” Sothe said. “I had thought to stay away, but...” Uncharacteristic indecision showed on her face.

“Stay away? Why?”

“She relies on me more than she should,” Sothe said. “I will not always be there to care for her.”

“She trusts you.”

“There should be more than one person in her life whom she trusts.” Sothe cocked her head. “You will protect her.”

It wasn’t a question. More like a command. Marcus straightened automatically. “Of course. I love her.”

“Good.” Sothe’s face relaxed, just slightly. “That’s good.”

“She wants a meeting tomorrow,” Marcus said. “A strategy conference.”

Sothe nodded. “The queen puts a great deal of faith in your ability.”

“I keep thinking about Winter. She’ll be there, of course.” He shook his head. “How am I supposed to treat her? She’s my little sister, but I hardly know her, not really.”

“She’s a soldier,” Sothe suggested. “Like you. You may have more in common than you realize. Perhaps you can start from there.”

RAESINIA

It was amazing how quickly things could become routine. Since she’d been old enough to walk, Raesinia had slept alone, in vast, cold beds as befit her status as Princess of Vordan. Her days with Marcus were brief by comparison, a bare instant, but now she felt his absence like a missing tooth. She’d grown used to lying beside him, warm and dreamy from their lovemaking, and listening to his breath gradually slow as he relaxed into sleep.

Before, she’d spent most nights working. Now she paced her bedchamber, nervous and irritable.

Winter really made it. Marcus seemed to believe the notes he’d received from “Janus,” or whoever was truly pulling the strings, but Raesinia had been privately skeptical. But unless it was a trap of surpassing subtlety, the communications had been genuine. Winter was here, and with her a chance to defeat the Beast. Or so we think.

Raesinia’s instincts told her they should be making plans at once, that there was no time to spare. She had to remind herself that ordinary humans needed sleep. Winter’s probably exhausted from her journey, and she said she had things to talk to Marcus about. And we’re still waiting for Sothe.

Sothe...

It was as though her thoughts were a summons. There was a quiet scrape at the window, which was Sothe’s version of a butler’s politely clearing his throat, a deliberate sound from someone who could have been perfectly silent. Raesinia turned and found her standing on the other side of the room, a slim, dark shape in the light of the brazier.

“Your Highness.” Sothe bowed deeply.

“You’re back.” Raesinia walked around the untouched bed, snatching a candelabra from a table by the door. In its flickering light, Sothe’s face was the same as Raesinia remembered, imperturbable and dispassionate, the faintest touch of sarcasm in her mobile eyebrows and severe features. She was dressed in the slightly scuffed black she always wore, capable of vanishing into the nearest shadow and no doubt full of hidden weapons.

“Where,” Raesinia said through clenched teeth, “have you been?”

“I asked Marcus to give you a message,” Sothe said. “Did he fail to do so?”

“He told me you were alive,” Raesinia said. “That was it! Not where you were going or when you planned to return. Nothing!”

“Don’t hold it against him,” Sothe said. “I didn’t tell him, either.”

“And you couldn’t have sent a letter? A message? A carrier pigeon?” Raesinia waved the candelabra in Sothe’s face, scattering drops of wax on the floor. “I needed you.”

“I am sorry, Your Highness. I thought...” She shook her head. “I had tasks to complete, and I hoped events would stay quiet for a time. Obviously, I was wrong.”

“Damn right, you were wrong. I almost ended up married to the Second Prince of Borel.”

Sothe raised one eyebrow. “A dire fate.”

“He’s not so terrible,” Raesinia said, with an affectedly casual air. “It’s his father who got on my bad side. The point is that it would have been nice to have a little help!”

“You seem to have escaped,” Sothe said. “And, from what I hear, Cora and Marcus have been of some assistance.”

“Cora has been amazing,” Raesinia said. “And Marcus... yes. But they’re not you. I...”

Raesinia’s voice died. Wax pattered softly from the candelabra, and she sniffed and set it aside.

“Do you know how worried I was?” she whispered. “At first I would listen for you, after dark, when the castle got quiet.”

“That was foolish,” Sothe said, with a hint of a smile. “You know you’d never have heard me coming.”

“And then,” Raesinia said, ignoring her, “I thought you weren’t coming back. That you’d been killed, doing—​whatever it was you were doing. And I...” She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. “I was so angry. And then guilty, for feeling angry, when you were lying dead somewhere, and here I was hating you for not being here, and—”

“I wasn’t dead.” There was something in Sothe’s voice that might have been a touch of emotion, well suppressed. “I went looking for Orlanko.”

Raesinia looked up. “Did you find him?”

Sothe nodded. “He won’t trouble us again.”

Orlanko. For all that he’d been the force behind the plot to usurp Raesinia’s throne, it had been ages since she’d thought about him. He seemed like such a nightmare a year ago. And now he was gone, a roadblock smashed flat on Janus’ rise to power, like so many others. Like me, if we lose.

And Sothe had hunted him down. You could almost feel sorry for him. But not quite.

“And then you found Winter and brought her here?” she said.

“It was considerably more complex than that. But yes, in essence.”

Raesinia let out a long breath. “Well. You’ll have to give me the full story sometime.”

“Winter can tell you most of it. Marcus knows the rest.”

“Why?” Raesinia felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising. “Where are you going? If you say you have more ‘business’ to take care of—”

“I have a part to play in stopping the Beast,” Sothe said. “I am... not sure what will happen.”

“Oh.” Raesinia relaxed a bit. “If anyone will be fine, you will.”

“Do not be so certain. I am... only human.”

“Enough,” Raesinia said, feeling something tighten in her chest. “No more of that sort of talk, understand?”

“As my queen commands,” Sothe said, smiling. She bowed again. “What shall we discuss instead?”

“Send for something to drink,” Raesinia said, forcing a grin. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

MARCUS

Marcus slept poorly, despite the brandy.

Ellie. He found himself going over his memories of his sister, and he was shocked at just how few he really had. In the long years of his exile, they had worn away, reduced to a few touchstones. A gap-​toothed smile, an afternoon spent in the garden, a crying fit whose cause he’d forgotten.

Even if Ellie wasn’t Winter—​if it was some other girl—​what kind of relationship would we really have? He tried to compose a picture of what he might have expected from a grown-up Ellie, but the features remained vague. What would we talk about? What would she think of me?

When he woke, tangled in the sheets of the too-​soft bed, his mouth was dry and his head pounded. He’d spent most of his evenings in the queen’s apartments, but last night he’d come back to his own, barely used quarters, a large suite that dwarfed his few possessions. Palace servants brought him water, filled his bath, and left a fresh, neatly folded uniform waiting for when he finished. He put it on, moving slowly to spare his head, and fixed the stars of a column-​general carefully to his shoulders.

The conference was in a dining room that Raesinia had repurposed as a command center, with a huge map of Vordan City and the surrounding area laid out on the big, polished table. When he arrived, she was there, looking down at the finely painted details of Ohnlei, wearing a silver and dark blue dress that was somber enough to verge on mourning attire. At the sight of him, she smiled and cocked her head.

“Are you all right?” she said.

Marcus crossed the room and bent down to kiss her. “I’ll be fine.” Eventually. “Where is everyone?”

“On the way.”

Sothe arrived first, all in rough black, moving silently to stand at Raesinia’s side as if she’d never left. Then Cyte, neatly dressed and looking better rested than she had in weeks. And then, finally, Winter.

She was back in uniform, but something had changed. The fit was different—​while her figure was modest, it nonetheless had unmistakably feminine curves. Her white-​blond hair, grown down to the back of her neck in the time she’d spent away, hung around her ears and framed her face, making it look softer. Seeing her now, like this, Marcus wondered how he could have ever mistaken her for a man.

Winter herself seemed less than comfortable in her new attire, and was tugging awkwardly at her uniform jacket. She bowed to the queen and offered Marcus a crisp salute.

“Division-​General Ihernglass, reporting,” she said. “I apologize for the length of my absence.”

“I believe I speak for all of us when I say that no apologies are necessary,” Raesinia said. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Your Highness. If you don’t mind, I have several companions who I think should join us.”

“Of course,” Raesinia said. “I trust your judgment.”

Winter went back into the corridor and returned with three others. Marcus recognized Alex, the young woman Winter had found on the Murnskai campaign, who’d accompanied her in her effort to find the Penitent who’d poisoned Janus. The other two were strangers to him. A tall, solemn young man in a priest’s robe accompanied a frail girl with a strip of cloth wound around her eyes, and guided her to one of the chairs pushed up against the walls.

“I think you know Alex,” Winter said. “This is her companion, Abraham, lately of the Mountain. He has his own demon as well.” She paused. “And this is Ennika, once one of the Penitent Damned.”

Raesinia caught her breath. “Once one of the Penitent Damned?”

“The Priests of the Black are destroyed,” Ennika said. Her voice was surprisingly strong for such a thin frame. “The Penitent Damned are no more. There is only the Beast of Judgment.”

“Ennika was a communicator, able to speak to her sister over great distances,” Winter said. “Now her sister has been taken by the Beast. In a way we don’t fully understand, Janus—”

“Some entity that claims to be Janus,” Sothe put in.

“—​indeed. The entity can speak to Ennika from ‘inside’ the Beast. So far, it has proven useful.”

“I’m not sure I would believe it,” Marcus said, eyeing the blind girl, “if not for the note Janus himself gave me.”

“If anyone could plot his way out from inside a demon, it’s Janus,” Raesinia said. “Has he told you anything more?”

Ennika nodded. “But he said this would be his last chance to speak to me. He has... convinced the Beast to bring its core, the center of its power, along with its army as it marches on Vordan City. This will enable it to take over the bodies of everyone here without delay. But Janus says it provides Winter with an opportunity. The Beast believes she is still in the north, trying to find a way back to Vordan.”

“Why won’t Janus be able to speak to you again?” Marcus said. “Has something happened?”

Ennika shrugged. “His communication was never clear at the best of times. Perhaps my sister’s soul has slipped from his grasp.”

“Whatever the reason,” Winter said, her tone still formal, “it’s clear we can’t count on his assistance. So the situation is this: somehow, I need to reach the core of the Beast and use Infernivore to destroy it.”

“Can you identify the core?” Raesinia said. “What is it?”

“A person. The first one the Beast took over.” There was a faint hitch in Winter’s voice. “I can identify it.”

“Even if it doesn’t think you’re nearby, I assume the Beast will keep the core well protected,” Marcus said, looking at Winter for confirmation. She nodded, a momentary awkwardness as their eyes met quickly smothered under military professionalism.

“It will,” she said. “It’s possible that our best chance would come during a major battle, where the Beast’s forces would have to deploy over a wider area.”

“Which puts things back in the domain of the military,” Sothe said.

“Do you want to go over the situation for everyone?” Raesinia asked Marcus.

“Want is putting it strongly,” Marcus said with a grimace. He couldn’t help darting a glance at Winter. She—​she—​was watching him intently. Focus. Raesinia needs you more than ever. He walked to the table and started to lay small wooden counters on the map.

“After Alves,” he said, “Janus pursued my army south along the Pale for quite a distance. Our garrisons in the Illifen passes were enough to keep his detachments west of the mountains until he gave up the chase and marched his main force to push through. Unfortunately, we now believe he met with considerable reinforcements from Murnsk at this point, more than making good his losses in the campaign so far.

“He took his time reducing the forts on the east side of the pass, giving him a clean line of communications back to Alves that we can’t interfere with. From there, as you can see, he had to deal with the Marak.” On the map, Marcus traced the line of the river Marak, running almost due south from its source near the mountains to where it emptied into the Vor twenty miles downstream of Vordan.

“The terrain is better west of the river,” Winter said. “Nice and flat, plenty of room to maneuver. Exactly what you’d want if you had an advantage in numbers. But...”

“He’d have to cross the river once he got here,” Raesinia said. She grinned at Marcus. “I haven’t entirely forgotten your strategy lessons.”

“Exactly,” Marcus said. “The Marak is wide enough to be a serious obstacle, and the Vor is even bigger. There are only a few bridges north of the city, and none to the south before Ohms. And he has to know by now that we have a Borelgai fleet backing us. Even if we can’t get the men-of-war up the Marak, the frigates would make short work of a small-​boat attack. Without his own fleet, he’d have to try to outmarch us in search of a crossing, and risk our striking at the pass to cut him off.”

“Splitting his army would be inviting an attack,” Winter said. “So he’s coming down the east bank?”

“For the most part,” Marcus said. “There’s some cavalry on the west side, watching the crossings to make sure we don’t slip around to his rear. But the bulk of his forces are coming due south, between the Marak and the Vor. From scouting reports, our best guess is that he has the equivalent of seven divisions, a bit more than sixty thousand men.”

“And we have?” Sothe asked, in the ensuing silence.

This was what had been keeping Marcus up late at night, going over strength reports and recruiting estimates. At least, it was what was keeping me up before Winter got back. “We got out of Alves with two divisions, the First and the Second, plus fragments of other units that escaped the battle. Between depot battalions, garrisons from the south, and fresh recruits, we’ve got enough bodies to fill one more. With the cavalry reserve, that gives us about thirty thousand bayonets and sabers.”

“Meaning we’re outnumbered two to one,” Raesinia said. “I’m not a military expert, but that sounds bad.”

“What about civilian volunteers?” Sothe said. “That worked in the revolution.”

“We’ll use whatever we can,” Marcus said. “But I’m skeptical they’ll be much good against a seasoned army. In the revolution, our skirmishers caught the loyalists off guard, but Janus won’t make the same mistake.”

“We don’t need to defeat Janus,” Winter said. “If I can get to the Beast, that army should fall apart. And if I can’t, then none of this will matter.”

“You’re going to need time to find the core,” Marcus said. “It’s no good if we’re swept off the field at the first charge, which is what would happen if we just deployed in the open and waited for him.”

“It sounds like you have an idea,” Raesinia said, toying nervously with one of the red-​painted counters.

“I see two possibilities, but I don’t like either of them.” Marcus took a deep breath. “The first is that we abandon Ohnlei and fall back to the city itself. Fortify as much as we can, fight house to house. Blow up the bridges to the island, when Janus gets that far.”

There was a shocked silence. The ancient bridges of Vordan City were more than just a means of getting across the river—​they were cultural artifacts, tying the kingdom to its ancient origins. Suggesting their demolition in the name of military expediency was close to sacrilege, especially since they were named for the holiest saints.

“We can’t stop them,” Marcus said after a moment. “Maybe if Vordan City had a proper wall, but it doesn’t. But we can slow them down and make them pay in blood for every street. And it will certainly buy Winter the time she needs.”

“No,” Raesinia said. Her hand gripped the edge of the table, hard enough that her knuckles stood out in stark white.

“I know it seems cruel,” Sothe said. “But if we win—”

“What’s the good in winning if the city is rubble by the time we’re finished?” Raesinia said. “We can’t bring the war into the streets. Vordan City had enough of that during the revolution. I’d rather abdicate.”

“The alternative isn’t abdication,” Sothe said. “It’s losing all of humanity to the Beast.”

“The queen is right,” Winter said. “We can’t have the battle in the city if we can possibly avoid it.”

“What’s the other alternative?” Raesinia said.

“It’s riskier,” Marcus said. “We deploy the army north of Ohnlei, close to the Marak, and dig in as much as we can. Janus won’t be able to slip around our left, because of the river, and if he tries to go wide around our right we can pounce on his rear. He’ll have no choice but to attack us. If we choose our position carefully, we might be able to hold out until nightfall, or until Winter succeeds.”

“That seems logical enough,” Winter said. “Why do you say it’s risky?”

“Because Janus is Janus,” Marcus said, with a bitter laugh. “General Kurot thought he had him locked in a trap, and look what happened to him. He could do a hundred things I haven’t thought of and we’d be in no position to stop him. Once we pick our ground, we’re committed—​we can’t maneuver without losing the advantage of our fortifications.” He scratched his beard. “The only reason I even suggest it is because of the way he fought in the Pale valley.”

“What way was that?” Sothe said.

“Carelessly,” Marcus said. “As though the lives of his troops meant nothing to him. Whenever I served under Janus, he never spent blood recklessly, but now...” He shrugged. “If all he’s concerned with is speed, he’ll come at us head-on. Then we’ll have our battle. If not, then we may end up like Kurot.”

Raesinia took a deep breath, her face hardening.

“I think it’s our best option,” she said. “How long do we have?”

“Five days, at the minimum,” Marcus said. “Longer, if Janus goes easy on his men, but when has he ever done that?”

“And have you picked out your site?”

“I think so,” Marcus said. “I need to go and look it over personally.”

Raesinia glanced at Winter, who nodded.

“All right,” Raesinia said. “Then this is where we stop the Beast.”