Queen of Fire

“Very good, Raulen,” I said. “I think that’s enough for today.”

“Thank you, my lord.” He rose from the stool and went to the cell door. “Same time tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow my trial begins,” I reminded him.

“Yes,” he sighed, pausing at the door and forcing a smile. “No doubt this great work will be complete when your innocence is proved.”

“No doubt.” I returned the smile, grateful for his artifice.

“Even your gaolers are scholars,” Fornella observed after the heavy door had slammed shut, leaving us alone. She sat on her narrow bunk, surrounded by bundles of parchment. With little else to occupy her during the long months of our shared captivity, she had taken on the translating of my manuscript into Volarian, despite full knowledge it would most likely remain unfinished.

My gaze tracked over her now almost all-white hair, tied back from her face into a tight bun. In recent weeks the skin on her scalp and hands had developed faint red spots and the lines around her eyes grew ever deeper, though she bore it all without complaint. Despite the many messages I asked Raulen to convey to every Imperial official I could recall, she had never once been allowed out of this cell to relate the warning she held. Our journey was indeed an abject failure and it seemed the survival of this empire now depended entirely on Queen Lyrna’s vengeful designs. An absurd hope, I knew. For all her wits, and Al Sorna’s martial cunning, the Volarian Empire was monstrous. It requires an empire to destroy an empire, I concluded, reaching for pen and parchment to write it down.

“Something to aid your defence, I hope,” Fornella said, glancing up from her own work.

“I have no defence, save the truth. And that will avail me nothing now.” The Empress, in her wisdom and benevolence, had sent no less than six learned counsel to act on my behalf at trial. All experienced legal scholars of impeccable reputation and, I saw clearly in their faces, absolutely no hope or expectation of securing my acquittal. I had listened to them all politely before releasing them from their duty with an assertion I would be conducting my own defence, much to their evident relief.

“The girl was lying,” Fornella went on. “The blindest fool can see that.”

“And were I to be judged by a jury of blind fools, I might have a chance. But there will be but one juror, and she is far from blind. However, even she cannot deny my right to speak following conviction. I can only hope there are ears to hear the warning.”

• • •

Despite my continued calm, a calm that I confess still baffles me, sleep eluded me that night. I had spent the evening arranging my manuscript and penning an outline for Raulen regarding the completion of the final chapters. He had agreed to take copies to a select few scholars of my prior acquaintance, though I harboured suspicions that those who didn’t immediately burn it might seek to claim it as their own work. Another copy would be conveyed to Brother Harlick in Varinshold, where at least it would receive a home in the Great Library he hoped to rebuild. As the small, barred window above my bed grew dark I took a quill and scrawled the words “A History of the Unified Realm” on a blank sheet of parchment, a little chagrined that my script wasn’t near so elegant as Raulen’s, and placed it atop the neatly arranged bundle.

I lay back on my bunk seeking rest I knew would elude me and pondering a particular point of scholarly regret. I never heard Al Sorna’s full account.

Somewhere past midnight, my half doze was interrupted by a faint creaking sound. I rose, blinking in the gloom and feeling my heartbeat lurch at the sight of the cell door slowly swinging open.

She decided not to wait for a trial, I concluded as my perennial calm dissolved and I cast about desperately for some kind of weapon. However Raulen was too diligent a gaoler to allow a prisoner any implement beyond the small wooden candlestick I wrote by.

I expected Hevren, or more likely some anonymous Imperial servant suitably skilled in crafting convincing suicide from murder. Instead the door swung open to reveal a slender form in a black dress, her eyes wide and fearful as she beckoned to me with desperate urgency. Jervia.

For a second I could only stare in amazement as she continued to beckon, her movements becoming frantic, then I swung myself off the bunk, dressing quickly and moving to Fornella. Over the weeks she had slept more soundly than I, either through the rapid onset of age or a salved conscience. In either case it took several attempts to wake her and several more to coax her from the bed.

“Why is she here?” she whispered, a deep frown on her wrinkled brow as she regarded Jervia fidgeting in the corridor.

“I don’t know,” I said, returning to my bunk to pull on my shoes. “However, we are provided with an open door, and I intend to use it.”

Jervia put a hand over my mouth as I came to the doorway, forestalling my whispered questions, moving away and gesturing for me to follow. I glanced back at Fornella, now dressed but no less suspicious. “I’m not sure I can run,” she murmured, coming to my side and taking my hand.

I led her along the corridor, past the other cells, all empty I noted, to where Jervia waited at the barred gate. I came to a rigid halt at the sight of Raulen, standing aside and holding the gate open.

“It’s all right,” Jervia whispered. “He doesn’t see us.”

I stepped closer to the gaoler, taking in the sight of his features, the eyes focused but not on me, a fond smile on his lips; the face of a man viewing a long-cherished sight.

“You did this,” I murmured to Jervia, sliding past Raulen’s bulk to come to her side.

She gave a nervous smile. “His daughter died at Marbellis. I gave her back to him.”

Gifted, I realised, glancing back at the gaoler and gaining a new appreciation for his sense of duty. All those years with the Hopekiller in his grasp and he never sought vengeance.

“It won’t last,” Jervia said, tugging at my sleeve.

She led me through Raulen’s meagre quarters and into the only slightly more ornate north wing of the palace; a series of storerooms and living quarters where the army of Imperial servants slept. We encountered only two guards, all wearing the same expression of focused delusion as Raulen. I saw Jervia wipe her cuff across her face as we moved on, noting the dark smear of blood on her skin and wondering how much strain she endured to facilitate this escape.

We stole through the courtyard in a crouch, though the pair of guards on the northern gate showed no sign of having noticed our passing. “We must hurry,” Jervia said, making for the grassland beyond the road. “The illusions will fade soon.”

“The road . . .” I began but she shook her head.

“Too well guarded, my lord. I have a rope placed on the cliff, and a boat waiting on the river.”

“I . . .” Fornella gasped, coming to halt, features sagging in the scant moonlight. “I can’t.”

“It’s not far . . .”

“Leave me,” she groaned, doubling over and sinking to her knees, drawing air into her lungs in ragged heaves.

“My lord!” Jervia implored.

I leaned down, putting a hand around Fornella shoulders, frowning at the sight of her face, eyes alert with warning and free of fatigue. “It’s him,” she breathed. “The Messenger. I know his stink.”

I straightened, meeting Jervia’s gaze, seeing only a scared young woman forced to a courageous act. “A moment please,” I said. “She grows older by the day.”

Jervia gave a reluctant nod, eyes darting about constantly for any sign of pursuit.

“Tell me,” I said. “What threats did the Empress make to coerce your testimony?”

Her face showed a pained grimace. “Father was arrested on charges of treason. It happened when word began to reach us of what had transpired in the Unified Realm.”

“She knew my return would be imminent, and prepared her trap accordingly.”

“I expect so.”

“And that ridiculous story about the sword?”

“Invented by Lord Velsus, at the Empress’s behest. I had no choice, my lord.”

“Of course.” I squeezed Fornella’s shoulder and moved away, keeping a distance from our rescuer. “I have known Lord Velsus for close to twenty years,” I said. “He’s an arrogant, self-regarding, judgemental bully. But he’s never been a liar, as I expect he lacks the imagination for deceit.”

She said nothing, but I saw how her eyes narrowed and her hand reached into the fold of her dress.

“You played your part very well,” I said, continuing to move away from Fornella, Jervia pivoting to match my every step, the muscles of her forearm bunching at she gripped something tight. “So reluctant and contrite, bound to win my trust when you came to open my cell door. When did it happen? Was it when the Red Hand took you?”

Her eyes flicked to Fornella, now groaning as her grey head lolled forward, then turning back to me with a different face. It was as if she had contrived some magician’s trick, switching the face of a sweet, brave maiden for something altogether older, its malice plain in every coarsened line and the twisted sneer of her lips. “When last we met you were not so courageous,” she said, Jervia’s well-spoken vowels moulded into something harsher, and familiar.