103 Calay Castle

The windows and doors of Calay Castle were shuttered and barred as the hurricane bombarded the city. The hard rain hissed and pattered, and the impatient wind struggled against the barriers. Servants moved through the castle with their voices hushed, browbeaten by the intimidating storm.

Walking like a specter through the dim halls, Anjine stopped at the threshold of her father's cold, dusty royal chamber and stared at the large bed, the empty fireplace, the burned-out candles beside the chair where Korastine had read his books, the shelves where he had displayed his keepsakes.

The hollowness of loss drove her away. She couldn't even bear to set foot inside the room.

The long war, tragedies, and harsh decisions had debilitated Korastine, so that in his last years he could only dream of searching for sunny lands beyond the horizon. He had left the kingdom in her care—but had Anjine taken care of Tierra? Had she honored the responsibility of the crown?

A thousand heads… a thousand innocents… a revenge that could never bring back her little brother. And yet she had done it without allowing herself any regrets, any second thoughts.

Her cat found and followed her, seeking attention, but she didn't pick him up as she wandered instead to Tomas's room. Tycho rubbed against the edge of the open door to her brother's quarters. When Anjine hesitated there, the cat strolled in, curious to explore a familiar room that had been closed off. Tycho walked a circuitous route around the prince's keepsakes, furniture, clothes chest, wardrobe cabinet. The cat's confident strut thawed Anjine's joints and she followed him inside.

“He's not here anymore, Tycho,” she said aloud. The sound of her voice startled her. The winds outside pushed against the shuttered window, muffled by the thick walls into a weary sigh. “He's gone.”

The words were so simple, but as vast as all of the unexplored seas.

Anjine knelt on the rug that covered the stone floor and gathered the cat up, pulling his warm body against hers. Tycho melted into her arms. He began to purr, a homey calming sound.

Memories streamed through her mind. Days ago, Mateo and the soldiers would have dumped a thousand Urecari heads at the Ishalem wall. Even when she pictured the look of shock and horror that must have showed on the soldan-shah's face, Anjine did not find it satisfying.

She closed her eyes and whispered, “What have I done, Tycho? I can't take any of it back.”

She had hoped to feel more, a sense of closure, of justice… but every one of those slain prisoners was also someone's child. Uraban women would feel the same loss, their little sons or brothers killed as unintentional game pieces in this terrible war. She had wanted them to feel her pain. She had needed to inflict the same hurt upon them, to make them understand the depth of the wound she had suffered.

But Anjine doubted the revenge would stop there. What would Omra do once he learned of the slaughter? What revenge would he take? What if the Urecari killed ten thousand Tierrans in an escalating retaliation? What if her own need to inflict pain ended up sparking even more bloodshed from the soulless enemy? How would she comfort the grieving families after the next wave of Uraban butchery?

As queen, Anjine was supposed to protect her people… but had she actually made them safer?

Tycho wanted to get down, and she let him onto the floor, where he took an interest in a set of carved wooden figures that had been stored on a bottom shelf with other old toys. She recognized the wooden ships, sea serpents, horses, carts—the paint was chipped and faded now, but she remembered when the colors were bright… when Tomas played with them as a little boy.

Sniffing and bumping his head against a sea-serpent figure, Tycho knocked the pieces down with a clatter that startled him.

Anjine's throat clenched with the raw pain of unvoiced sobs. She could not express the whirlwind of contradictory thoughts and yearnings inside of her. She could not break down the thick, protective wall she had built around her heart and mind….

Some hours later, Enifir found her there on the floor just staring at the wooden figures. Speaking with stern compassion, the handmaiden led her away from the small room filled with shadows and ghosts.

To drive away the persistent gloom, servants had built roaring fires in all the main rooms. In her damp withdrawing room, with a beeswax candle burning beside her and the cat curled on her lap, Queen Anjine listlessly studied documents, but she had been shuffling through the papers for more than hour, unable to focus on the words.

Enifir sat with the queen, cradling her newborn baby and letting the little girl suckle at her breast. “If there's anything you need, my Queen, I will bring it to you.”

Anjine pretended to be engrossed in the document. “No thank you. I am fine.”

Enifir kept talking, as if she assumed the queen needed to hear more human voices. “I'm worried about my Vorannen. He's out in the streets, keeping watch over the city, but no man should be out in that storm. The sound of that wind and rain makes me want to hold somebody.”

“Vorannen needs to be here with you—is there any way to call him back?”

“No, Majesty. He knows his duty, as do all the city guard.” Finished nursing, the handmaiden walked around the room with the baby on her shoulder. She paused in front of the queen, who looked up at the baby. Enifir's expression softened. “Would you like to hold her, Majesty?”

Hesitantly, Anjine took the infant wrapped in blankets and gazed down at the small face. She reflected on how tragic life was, how clearly she remembered holding her baby brother, how much joy Tomas had brought to Korastine and Ilrida. Yet even with so much sadness, so many times when hope and perseverance were knocked to the ground, fresh hope returned and life went on.

Fleeing her own thoughts and afraid she would break down and cry, she handed the little girl back to Enifir. Tycho adjusted his position, making a warm nest in Anjine's skirts, and she petted his head. He didn't like the storm either.

Sen Leo entered the sitting room, looking worried, as he always did. Anjine finally gave up on the document and set it aside. “Shouldn't you be in the Saedran District with your family, Sen Leo?”

He made a grimace of impatient frustration. “I've been here for two days, my Queen. I don't dare leave the castle now, but… yes, I am concerned for my wife.” He slumped in one of the hard chairs. “She's never been a fool, though I doubt she'd say the same thing about me. She knows how to take care of the house and herself. I just wish I could be with her.” He paused, then shook his head. “Be thankful, Majesty, that the headlands shelter the harbor from the worst of it. The Oceansea must be a great cauldron, boiling and churning, stirring things up from the depths.”

“This is how Ondun washes the stains from the world,” Anjine said quietly.

“Is that a quote from the Book of Aiden? Prester-Marshall Rudio said the same thing to me an hour ago.”

Anjine was surprised. “He is here too?”

“He came to perform services when the storm began, and he remained in the castle rather than returning to the kirk. I don't think he wanted to get wet.”

As though responding to his name, the old prester-marshall appeared at the workroom door. When a particularly loud gust rattled the shutters, Rudio winced, ready to duck should the stone walls blow in. Embarrassed, he tried to disguise his reaction as a bow of respect. “My Queen, on such a long stormy day, I came to see if you would like me to pray with you?” He glanced at the Saedran scholar, a bit intimidated. “And of course Sen Leo na-Hadra is welcome, if he would join us.”

“Thank you for the offer, Prester-Marshall, but I prefer to pray by myself.” Sen Leo smiled over at Anjine. “While we've been cooped up inside the castle, Rudio and I have had many interesting and insightful discussions. It reminded me of my times with Prester-Marshall Baine.”

The prester-marshall's expression soured. “Sen Leo is a wise Saedran, but no matter how many times I show him Aiden's words as proof, he still clings to his own beliefs.”

The old scholar responded with a humble shrug. “I was about to give a similar assessment of you, Prester-Marshall.”

Acutely aware of the hollowness inside her, Anjine was in no mood for banter. “To answer your question, I have already done plenty of praying, but no matter how benevolent Aiden is, he won't find a way to place my brother's head back on his shoulders, or to gather all the innocent blood our enemies have spilled.” Anjine extricated Tycho from her lap and set him on the stone hearth near the fire. She walked over to the shuttered window, feeling drafts whistle through the cracks. The wind reminded her of a cold, moaning whisper of grief. “We are beyond prayer. Now we must do our worshiping with a sharpened sword.”