Antiphon (21 page)

Winters said nothing as Ria turned her horse. Aedric whistled them forward, and they found themselves suddenly at the head of the procession, with the Machtvolk queen riding now between Jin and Winters as Lynnae and Aedric dropped back. The Machtvolk riders and footmen formed a wall to either side of the Gypsy Scouts, and together they moved at a moderate speed.

They rode in silence now, cutting north and passing between two watchtowers that loomed over a newly cut dirt road now mostly gone to mud. Ahead, Jin Li Tam saw low hills shrouded in mist that brushed the tops of the pine trees, and she thought she heard something from the forest there.

As they drew nearer, she became more sure of it and glanced to the woman beside her.

Ria’s face bore quiet delight.

It was the sound of singing on the wind.

The song grew as they approached, and suddenly, the rain let up. Scattered rays of sunlight perforated the cloud cover, though the air was still cold enough for Jin to see her breath.

She heard Jakob’s muffled laughter and adjusted her cloak so that his tiny face could peer out. They’d learned early that he loved music, and one of her favorite new pastimes as a mother was pretending to sleep while Rudolfo sang quietly to their son.

Now, all around her, voices sang, and she felt the hairs rising on her skin as the lyrics became clear. And as they entered the forest and climbed into the low hills, she saw the people crowding the sides of the road, their evergreen branches raised high in trembling hands as they sang of a healed home through their Child of Promise, a Great Mother of daunting beauty and a Crimson Empress of infinite mercy who prepared even now for her bridegroom.

The song rose high into the winter sky, and Jin Li Tam realized suddenly that other voices joined in around them as the Machtvolk escort and even their queen lifted up their own voices.

Close against her breast, Jakob laughed in delight, and she realized suddenly that tears coursed her cheeks. But even as Jin Li Tam wept, she did not know if her tears were from the beauty or the terror of the overwhelming hymn that encompassed them.

Winters arose early and slipped out into cold northern air beneath a predawn sky flung wide with stars.

Of course, she’d not really slept. The events of yesterday had rushed at her all through the night. Even during dinner—a lavish feast of salmon, elk and wild mushrooms—the song echoed through her, punctuated by memories of Jakob’s delight by it all and Jin Li Tam’s unexpected tears.

She rarely sheds tears.
Winters wished she were like that, too. But she wasn’t. And what she’d seen and heard since her return to these changing lands had added more sorrow, more remorse to her shoulders.

On the surface, all looked well, but beneath it lay something darker. The watchtowers were up, but they watched both outward and inward. And the children, enrolled now in schools, were volunteering to take the mark as they learned
a more balanced history of their people
through history, poetry, drama . . . and the gospels. They were also training the children now in the blood magicks and scouting.

She’d heard this over dinner when the song wasn’t pulling her back to their grand entrance into her former lands. And on that ride, she’d seen the evidence of other changes—there was more lumber being pulled from the forest; there were more houses and structures built and more uniformed men moving to and fro among her people.

Winters heard a sound behind her now and looked over her shoulder. She saw one of her sister’s guards following at a distance and behind him, a Gypsy Scout that kept to the darker patches of night.

She let her feet carry her, and somehow, despite the changed landscape, they found a familiar path and bore her to the caves she’d once called home, the caves that stored the Book of Dreaming Kings and held the Wicker Throne. The heavy oak doors were closed now, and when she saw the guard there, she paused. He stood in shadows cast by the watch lamp on its post and stepped forward when he saw her approaching.

She stopped, unsure of what to do or say. Suddenly apprehensive, she glanced over her shoulder again. The men that followed her had stopped as well.

“Is the way to the Book closed, then?” she finally asked.

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

She studied him, finding him suddenly familiar. He was perhaps ten years older than she was, and though the face paint bent his features, she was certain that she knew him. “You are one of Seamus’s grandchildren.”

The guard nodded but said nothing. He stepped farther into the light and waved to the guard that followed her. Positioning himself so that her body was between him and the others, his hands moved quickly and her eyes were drawn to them.

Hail Winteria bat Mardic, true queen of the Marsh,
he signed to her.
I am your servant, Garyt ben Urlin.

Winters blinked, his words overpowering her. She opened her mouth to speak, remembered herself, and willed her own hands to move into the house language of Y’Zir.
Grace to you, Garyt.

“These caves are closed by order of Queen Winteria the Elder,” he said aloud. And his hands flashed again.
We may bear the mark on our bodies, but we do not all bear it in our souls.

She felt the heat in her face before she felt the water in her eyes. She remembered these words—she’d said something similar to Seamus on
the day of his sobbing confession. But these were not words of comfort spoken into shame. They were words of loyalty and commitment. She felt a tear break loose. “Thank you,” she said.

Turn now,
she willed herself. And she did. She turned and took another path her feet remembered. The landmarks had changed, but she still found her way. At last, she stood in a wide, bare patch of ground near the river. It was a place she’d come to when she needed to meditate upon the dreams she’d had until just a few months ago.

She tried to remember those days spent in meditation but found the memory of them elusive. Instead, her mind was filled with the song and the children that took the mark and those doors now closed and guarded where her book of dreams lay hidden. She’d seen and heard so much the day before and had assumed it meant her people had wholeheartedly embraced this new way of life.

But Garyt hadn’t, despite the mark he’d taken and the uniform he wore. And now she was certain there were others like him.

Drawing her knives, Winters balanced them in her hands and shifted on her feet. Overhead, the stars wrapped themselves in rain clouds to leave her in darkness. The sound of the river’s slow current mingled with the soft and distant hoot of an owl.

Winters drew in her breath and held it.

All is not lost here,
she realized.

She brought the knives up, held parallel to her forearms, the edges facing out. She moved her legs apart and slowly released her breath, remembering the form that Jin Li Tam had taught her.

Then, Winters began to dance and in that dancing, laid aside her tears.

Vlad Li Tam stood in the bow of his flagship and squinted against the fading light. He’d taken to sleeping during the day so that he could spend his nights here, watching.

So far, their penetration into the deeper waters of the Ghosting Crests had been uneventful. And while his children had finally seen the anomaly that their father was so utterly fixated upon, they still did not fully comprehend the depth of his obsession.

Not obsession,
he told himself with a sigh as he scanned the waters off his bow.
Love.

But even as he thought it, he knew it was ridiculous. Yet he felt the mark of it on him as real as the scars that Ria had given him. His heart raced when he stood here, waiting for his ghost to appear. His hands were clammy. His mind was filled with the image of her graceful movement in the water, and when he tossed in his cot and tried to sleep, it was the song that emanated from her that kept him awake. No matter where he went upon his ship, inevitably the sunset found him here. Waiting.

Because she draws me.

More importantly, he suspected that she was aware of her pull upon him and used it now to move him and what remained of his family
southeast, farther into the Ghosting Crests than any Named Lander had sailed.

The stars throbbed to life above him as the sky blurred from purple to deep charcoal, and as he watched, the moon lifted itself into the sky—a sliver now but enough to light the water. As the day slipped past, the noise of the crew dissipated and the night noise of wave and clanking engine took over.

Here she comes,
he told himself, and he felt it on his skin, in the tiny hairs within his ears, as her song started up beneath the water. A patch of ocean shimmered and undulated ahead, and he clung to the railing, leaning forward.

He watched as she moved through the water, tendrils of light trailing behind like hair. There was a grace about her that he’d never seen before, and once more, he felt his heart aching and felt that compulsion to join her.

I have become a foolish old man.
And even as he thought it, he watched as she abruptly changed course and struck south. He raised his hand to the pilothouse behind him and pointed in the direction she raced, waiting for the ship to turn along with their guide. Slowly, he felt the list as the ship bore hard to starboard.

After an hour, she was back and changing course yet again, this time heading due east.

He motioned to the pilothouse again and heard the engines groaning as they increased power and turned the ship. He gripped the railing and let the wind catch hair he’d been too distracted to cut and a beard he’d been too unfocused to trim. Ahead, as the ocean around and ahead grew darker, he watched his ghost in the water.

The d’jin slowed enough for them to keep up, adjusting course here and there as needed, and Vlad Li Tam stood watch and counted the hours as they raced over a placid sea.

The sky was lightening when they finally slowed, and he watched as the blue-green lights swung in a wide circle ahead of them. Squinting ahead, he saw something vaguely outlined in the water, and he called it out for the watchman and pilot.

As they slowed and approached, the d’jin rolled and broke the surface, illuminating the small drifting object with the glowing tendrils of light.

It was a lifeboat.

Behind him, the ship went to third alarm and he heard his family scrambling. Before the flagship’s longboat slapped the waves, the d’jin
had darted off to the southeast again, and Vlad knew that she would not be back until the next nightfall.

Sighing, he left the bow and moved to the port side where he could watch. He saw Baryk, bare chested and wearing silk sleeping pants, and approached.

“Your ghost has found us something,” the warpriest said.

Vlad Li Tam studied the water below, watching as his men, illuminated in the light of their lantern, threw their hooks and drew the drifting boat to their own. “Yes,” he answered, though his voice sounded more distant than he’d wanted it to. “She has.”

He heard excited voices carrying up and across the water, but he wasn’t able to pick out any of the words. He saw them scrambling into the boat and heard their gasps at what they found there.

Two men manned the oars of the lifeboat and steered it toward the flagship. The longboat followed after, and when they reached the lift, Vlad leaned over the railing. “What have you found?”

His fifty-first son looked up. “The boat bears the markings of the
Kinshark
.” Lying in the bottom of it, Vlad saw a vague shape that took form as the longboat approached with its lantern, and found himself gasping with surprise as well.

What have you brought us, my love?
He blinked at the shape, uncertain of his eyes.

There, stretched out cruciform, lay a broken metal man in Androfrancine robes.

A light snow fell in the northern reaches of the Ninefold Forest, and Rudolfo shrugged the flakes from where they gathered in his cloak. The morning air was still and heavy with the smell of wood smoke and pine. It was cold, too, carrying his breath away in clouds as he walked his woods in the quietest hour between night and dawn.

Behind him, the camp stirred to life as Lysias’s sergeants moved among the recruits with their pine switches, slapping buttocks and thighs as they went about motivating the men to a more eager wakefulness. Already, the Gypsy Scouts were up and loaded—as was Rudolfo—and this morning they would ride ahead of the battalion so that Rudolfo could see their discovery for himself.

Just days on the heels of Jin Li Tam and Jakob’s departure, his
second captain, Philemus, had brought word of what his scouts had found after days of chasing the metal men. He’d been sipping a pear wine that was nearly too sweet for his palate and pushing his fork through a rice-and-venison dish that seemed flavorless when the officer was ushered into Rudolfo’s private dining room.

“We’ve found where they were running,” he’d said. And even in that moment, Rudolfo could see on the man’s face that he would be packing and riding out himself. The next day, under the cover of a training exercise with Lysias’s army, he and an elite squad had set out for the far northern reaches of his territories.