CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Palace of Aqhat, Isembaard

I shbel refused to believe what she had just witnessed.

That could not have happened.

No. She was in agony from the birth, she had lost much blood, she was in shock.

She could not have just seen what her eyes insisted she had seen.

Maximilian’s baby was safe. She would find it in a moment, on the floor perhaps, cold and bruised but alive.

Maximilian’s baby was alive. It must be. It must be, oh, gods, it must be alive…

Isaiah was shouting…

At Axis, who had just appeared behind Isaiah’s shoulder.

Shouting something about Zeboath, and Axis, after giving her one long appalled look, turned and ran, shouting in turn at the armed men who had crowded into the chamber.

Yes. Zeboath. That’s who she needed. That’s who her baby needed. Zeboath was good. Ishbel felt an overwhelming rush of affection for Isaiah. Isaiah knew what to do. He had killed Ba’al’uz. She was very grateful to him.

Now, if he could just help her to sit up. If he could just hand her the baby, then all would be well.

“Ishbel…” Isaiah dropped the sword, and Ishbel winced at the noise of it clattering to the floor.

He bent down to her, gathering her into his arms and lifting her as easily as if she had been the baby.

“My baby,” she said. “Please, Isaiah, give me my baby.”

He turned about so that she faced away from Ba’al’uz’ body and that of…

Ishbel began to moan, and Isaiah held her close, and rocked her back and forth, murmuring to her as gently as if she were a baby herself, and Ishbel began to weep.

Zeboath passed a trembling hand over his eyes.

He had just spent an hour with Ishbel, now settled in a chamber distant from the bloodied mess where she’d given birth, and he felt drained and barely able to talk.

“Well?” said Isaiah.

They were standing outside the closed door of Ishbel’s chamber, he, Isaiah, and Axis.

“Ishbel is well enough,” said Zeboath, “considering what she has just gone through. The birth was sudden, and thus very painful, but it did her surprisingly little damage. Often, you see, when babies come this quickly, they—”

“Yes, yes,” said Isaiah. “Ishbel is well?”

“Well enough in body,” said Zeboath. “But in spirit…”

They stood in silence a moment, each remembering the frightful, bloody scene where Ishbel had given birth.

“She keeps asking me for the baby,” Zeboath said. “She says she wants to hold the baby. But how can I give it to her? Gods, I can’t sew that head back on! And I can’t give her…I can’t give her the…headless…I can’t…”

Axis put a hand on Zeboath’s shoulder. “You have done more than enough, Zeboath. Thank you.”

Zeboath took a deep, shuddery breath. “If it is any consolation, I do not think the baby would have lived, anyway. It was early, yes, even though by a month only, but its lungs had not formed, and its body was severely malnourished. Both Ishbel and I had been worried about its lack of movement over these past weeks. I think perhaps the drugs and poisons Ba’al’uz gave Ishbel during the journey through the FarReach Mountains…”

“You told her this?” Isaiah said.

Zeboath nodded. “She needed to know, Excellency.”

Isaiah sighed. “Yes. She needed to know. I thank you as well, Zeboath. You have done your best for both of us today. Axis, can you supervise the clearing of Ishbel’s chamber? Take away Ba’al’uz’ body and that of the damned dog and burn the damned things. And, ah, speak to the palace chamberlain about a burial for the baby. Tell him that I want a full ceremony at dawn tomorrow. The least we can do for Ishbel is to farewell the child in full due. Then meet me back in my private chamber. We need to talk.”

Axis nodded, and left.

“Is Ishbel awake?” Isaiah asked Zeboath.

“Yes. I have given her an herbal draft to sedate her, but she is still awake.”

“Good,” said Isaiah.

Ishbel lay completely still on her bed in the darkened chamber, weeping great silent tears that rolled down her cheeks and soaked into her pillow.

For the first time in weeks she was thinking about Maximilian. All she could think about was how much he’d wanted this child.

A family of his own. Children of his own, when for so many long, terrible years that concept had been a dream beyond reach.

He’d loved her growing belly, had been so proud of it and of her.

So cherished a hope, shattered with such callous madness.

Ishbel wept for Maximilian, not for herself. The baby had been a girl. A daughter. Ishbel could imagine Maximilian with a daughter, imagine his face creasing in a delighted smile as the girl played before him, imagine him swinging her high in the air in his arms, imagine his face, the wonder in his face, as he watched her grow.

And she’d lost the baby. Lost her.

Nothing Zeboath had said to her had eased her guilt. Ba’al’uz may have been the hand by which the child had died, whether by poison or by that single, devastating sword stroke, but Ishbel felt as if she had killed the child herself, through lack of interest.

She’d never really cared for her pregnancy. She’d regarded it with distaste or disinterest or outright resentment.

Today her daughter had paid for that disinterest and resentment.

“Ishbel?”

Isaiah was standing by the side of the bed, looking at her. He hesitated, then sat down carefully on the bed.

He lifted one of her hands into his, interlacing their fingers, and he sat there for an hour in silence, holding her hand in his, and kept her company until she finally succumbed to Zeboath’s herbal draft and slid into sleep.

Isaiah sat, his fingers interlaced with Ishbel’s, and watched her sleep.

This was his fault. His alone.

He’d ignored the risk of Ba’al’uz, and had assumed the man was simply off wandering in some deranged manner about Coroleas.

Ba’al’uz had been wandering, deranged, but in the end his steps had been guided and purposeful.

Isaiah had assumed that placing guards about Ishbel would keep her safe, and they had not.

Ba’al’uz had come wrapped in Kanubai’s power, and no mortal man would have seen him.

Gods, what would Lister say when he heard?

Isaiah lifted his head and looked out the window. He could not see Dark-Glass Mountain, but he could feel it, and he knew Kanubai had finally wormed his way free of the abyss.

Via the blood of the sacrificial child, the child of Maximilian and Ishbel.

And that rope of tortured souls? What part had DarkGlass Mountain itself had to play in today’s tragedy? Had it whispered to Kanubai the means? Had it whispered to him a plan?

Shit…shit…shit!

Maximilian and Ishbel’s child, sacrificed to Kanubai.

Kanubai, born of Maximilian’s flesh.

It was a disaster.

They had no time to waste now. Kanubai was still very weak, and would be so until the Skraelings reached him, but Isaiah did not think he’d be having any more meditative sessions inside DarkGlass Mountain.

He had to move north, and he had to return Ishbel north. No one was doing any good here.

But for now, he sat and held Ishbel’s hand, watching her sleep.