The Wheel of Osheim

Garyus raised a hand. “I have more recent reports. Marshal Serah is—”

“Marshal Serah? How many marshals is this city to have in one night? And Serah’s a child for godsake!” Though if I were honest she had been doing an efficient job of organizing the defence when I left.

Garyus waited, pursing his lips to see if I had any more complaints. I held my tongue. “The breakthrough is reported to have been contained. The dead remaining outside the walls grew less . . . vital . . . and proved unable to follow the others over the ramp and scaffold. Reinforcements arrived: a mercenary force in my employ together with armed citizenry, including a number who formerly made their living in the Blood Holes and other illegal fighting dens . . .” Here his eye wandered in Snorri’s direction, letting me know the story of the Northman and the bear had reached his ears. “And these reinforcements ensured the destruction of the dead that made it into the city.”

“They’ll strike somewhere else! The walls by Tannery Square are hardly standing as it is. I—”

“The firing of the outer city cremated a large number of the corpses raised against us and has severely curtailed the ability of those remaining to move around the walls. My reports indicate that the dead host lacks leadership or direction.”

“But there were necromancers . . . I saw Edris Dean myself! They must be planning something . . . The sewers!”

“You saw to that weakness yourself, Jalan, and there are no indications of attack. It seems that the Dead King has lost interest in this assault.”

“But . . . why? Because we sent his lichkin back to Hell?” It didn’t make sense. He almost had us. Why give up?

“A merchant would ask what profit our opponent sought to make.” Garyus eased himself back, wincing. “Why did he spend his strength here, against this city?”

“Because the Red Queen left us. What better time to attack Vermillion?”

“You’re thinking about what we value, Jalan, not what the Dead King values. What does he care for Vermillion? Or all of Red March? There are many cities, many places where the living can be converted into the dead far more easily than in the heart of Red March, wherever the Red Queen might be.”

“All this for the key? All this?” It didn’t seem possible, though as I said it Loki’s key turned to ice against my chest.

“What other thing would profit him more?”

“But.” I clapped my hand over the key. “He doesn’t have it. Why give up now?”

“I don’t know, Jalan. But I do know his power is not limitless and the prospect for a victory of the sort he would need in order to claim the key became slim when the lichkin fled and our defences proved more formidable than perhaps he anticipated.”

“Or he found some other treasure,” Snorri rumbled at my shoulder.

“Indeed.” Garyus showed no irritation at a barbarian interrupting. “I have considered the possibility. But what other compensation might have satisfied?”

A horrible thought unrolled itself and try as I might to pack it back into a small neat dot of possibility it wouldn’t go. “Why did they come here in the first place?”

“Who?” Garyus shifted his gaze from Snorri to me.

“The unborn.” So many miles had passed beneath my feet and still I found myself back at the start of it all. Me and Snorri together in the Red Queen’s throne room again, talking about the dead once more. And on the evening of that same day I had bumped shoulders with the Unborn Prince, at the opera, a place where no good thing ever happened. “Why did the unborn come here in the first place?”

“They came to bring another unborn into the world. A powerful one.” Garyus watched me with peculiar intensity. “It must have been powerful to risk the Dead King’s two greatest servants within Vermillion’s walls with the Red Queen in the city.”

“My sister.”

“You don’t have a sister, Jalan . . .”

“Edris Dean killed her in Mother’s womb the night he came to the palace. I saw Mother test her belly with your orichalcum just before the attack. The light . . . it was as if the sun had come to Earth . . .” Snorri’s hand gripped my shoulder in a moment’s sympathy, then fell away. “My sister chased me out of Hell. If she had caught me I would have been her gate into the world. I think she tried to come through Father when he died. And again, when Darin fell at the walls. Something tried to come through him.”

“But it didn’t succeed?” Garyus frowned. “So why did the Dead King withdraw his strength . . .”