Fire Falling (38 page)

“You will be hidden in plain sight.” He caressed her cheek gently. “From today, your doubles own your name. It is no longer yours.”

“What?” Vhalla was overwhelmed and confused.

“By tomorrow, one of them will be the real Vhalla Yarl. But none of them will be the real Vhalla Yarl. You will be a swordswoman of no merit or worth. You will have come with the Western footmen so no one will question not knowing you. Make up any name and story you would like but you will need it soon.”

“I can’t ...” she whimpered softly, she didn’t even know how to hold a sword.

“You can, and you will,” he said firmly. Aldrik shook his head. “This is the best chance we have now, and I
will not
lose you.”

“What about the other women? They will be targeted,” she whispered.

“Exactly, and if one of them is slain the North may just believe they have killed the Windwalker,” he said coldly.

“Aldrik, that’s someone’s daughter, maybe someone’s mother, or someone—”

“I don’t care!” Vhalla jumped at his sudden intensity. Aldrik stormed to the opposite side of the room. “I have to make a choice, Vhalla. That choice is your life or theirs, and it is no question for me. If they die, then they will die honorably for their Emperor.” He turned back to her and she saw—to her horror—that his words were true, he really didn’t care about their lives. They had been written off as expendable.

She fidgeted with her fingers.

“You will ride with Baldair—”

“What?” Vhalla exclaimed, jumping to her feet. Her calf stung in pain and Aldrik was quickly supporting her. “Aldrik, no, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone!”

“Quiet.
Hush
.” It was a command but his soothing words had their desired effect. “You must ride there for the illusion of a swordswoman. But it is only until we reach the North.” Aldrik smoothed her hair away from her eyes. “When we reach the border, the host will split into smaller groups for movement through the jungle. You’ll be with me then.”

She sniffled loudly, tears returning anew.

“You’ll be with me then, my Vhalla, my lady, my love.” Aldrik pressed his lips firmly against hers, silencing any further objections.

“Do you ...” she sniffled.

“I promise.” Aldrik’s jaw quivered briefly, and he was kissing her again. His mouth tasted like resignation, and Vhalla knew that was the flavor he would leave her with. “Now, promise me you will be strong.”

“I promise.” Her face twisted in agony.

Aldrik pressed her against him, and Vhalla clung to him so tightly her hands shook. His long fingers snaked through her hair. “I will sacrifice anything that must be sacrificed to keep you safe.”

She believed him completely—evoking a new terror to swim through her veins.

He led her to a different room on the same floor and instructed her to wait. Vhalla had no idea what to expect when he reappeared later with the Emperor.

She clutched at the blanket Aldrik had placed over her tattered clothing. The Emperor regarded her with thinly veiled contempt. Aldrik was completely closed off.

“Well, let us begin.” Emperor Solaris walked over to a table, opening a folio he was carrying, sitting before a handful of papers.

One at a time, Aldrik brought in majors who escorted women under their command. And one at a time Vhalla told them what it meant to be Vhalla Yarl. She told them of her childhood, her home in Cyven. She told them of the library, Mohned, her apprenticeship, Roan, and Sareem. She told them of the Night of Fire and Wind and of her trial. She laid herself bare to them with the Emperor and majors watching.

It felt like a Projection. She spoke and moved but her mind was more detached with everything that was said. Every word gave away pieces of herself and she became less and less Vhalla Yarl.

The last was a woman almost identical to her short stature. She appeared to be a mixture of Southern and Eastern with long dark blond hair. Vhalla felt she was the closest to her looks, despite her lighter hair and blue eyes. That woman thanked her before she was ushered out of the room. Vhalla was certain the woman had not listened to a thing Vhalla had said about her life if the woman was thanking Vhalla for the opportunity to be her.

Between Vhalla retelling her story to each doppelganger and the secrecy required to sneak each woman in and out of the room, it took all morning and into the afternoon to accomplish the task. By the time the last woman was led to her holding room Vhalla was exhausted.

Aldrik and the Emperor favored the same woman as Vhalla, which meant that woman would be the double who would ride in Aldrik’s company. Vhalla was given the woman’s bag as her new clothes. Aldrik also thrust a dagger and a bottle of black ink into her hands, telling her to do whatever she could to change her appearance.

Trembling and alone in the washroom, Vhalla carefully sponged away the dirt and blood from the night before. She watched carefully as she applied the ink to her hair, changing the brown strands to black. After letting it sit for a moment she rinsed and repeated the process three times. She inspected her progress in the mirror; her hair had indeed changed color.

Vhalla bit her lip, remembering how straight and tame her hair had been when Larel had used her heat upon it. She choked down a sob and raked her fingers through her hair with pockets of wind trapped underneath. It was clumsy and took a few minutes to be met with any success. But it dried straighter, more Western looking, taking out her normal wavy texture. It was longer this way, and Vhalla made the conscious decision not to cut short it again. She had done so once and become no one. This time she would grow into her new skin.

But Vhalla still grabbed for the dagger. Pulling her bangs in the front Vhalla made a straight horizontal cut just below her brow. For the second time in a year, Vhalla was unable to recognize the person staring back at her in the mirror. She leaned over the washbasin, muffling her mouth with her hand as she struggled to suppress tears for the woman whose memory she had decided to honor.

Keep it together
. Vhalla Yarl’s friend died, Vhalla Yarl would mourn.
She was not Vhalla Yarl
. She looked back to the mirror, steeling her resolve. Looking at the hard eyes and foreign face she repeated to herself,
she was not Vhalla Yarl.
She cleaned up the bathroom quickly, changing into the other woman’s clothes—she corrected herself—
her
clothes.

She left the washroom and returned to where the Emperor and Aldrik waited. Both men looked her up and down. The Emperor leaned back in his chair.

“It will do,” he said, rubbing a finger against his lips.

“What is your name?” Aldrik asked her.

“Serien,” she replied without hesitation.

“Serien, what is your family name?” he questioned.

“Serien Leral,” she said and realized the moment he recognized her name.

Aldrik struggled to keep his composure. “Where are you from?” His jaw set firmly.

“A town called Qui. It’s a mining town that I hope you never have to go to,” she recited. Her story had been built for her.

“Where is Qui?” The Emperor leaned forward, folding his hands between his knees.

“It’s about halfway to Norin, if you take the old roads.”

“Your parents?” Aldrik asked.

“My father was a miner, and a drunk. My mother was a broken woman who left her home in the East because she thought it was love. They died when I was young, and I worked in the mines.” Despite her small changes to account for her eyes she wondered if the Emperor would see the source of inspiration for her story. She smiled coldly;
of course he wouldn’t
. Larel had meant nothing to him, she doubted he even remembered the girl his son saved from the silver mines of Qui.

“Why are you here?” The Emperor questioned her confident gaze.

“For a better life, to serve the Emperor,” she said easily.

“Well done, Miss Yarl.” The Emperor sat back in his chair.

She stared at him curiously. “Miss Leral,” she corrected.

The man simply chuckled.

“Your armor is here.” Aldrik stood to the side and allowed her to approach the table that was behind them. Basic plate and silver chainmail was displayed upon it. Vhalla was stunned a moment, one of the women would be wearing the armor Aldrik had made for her.
No
, she reminded herself, Aldrik had made that armor for Vhalla Yarl, and
she was not Vhalla Yarl
.

She scooped up the chainmail. This was Serien’s armor, simple and unadorned. It was the kind of armor that would slip into a mass of soldiers and be undistinguishable from the next. Aldrik silently assisted in showing her how to strap on the plate. It was heavier than her scale, and the weight made her favor her uninjured leg as she pulled on the gauntlets.

He turned and presented her with a sword. Thankfully, it strapped over her left leg, her good leg, so she could draw it with her right hand. She shifted, adjusting to its weight on her hip.

“Any questions?”

There was a notable pause and their eyes met. She wondered what he saw in her then,
who
he saw then.

“Serien?”

The name was strange to hear coming from him, addressed to her. But if anyone could say it and make her believe that it was her new identity, it would be Aldrik. She shook her head no.

“Good, you’ll be reporting under the Golden Guard. You are dismissed.”

She nodded. Her eyes reflected the empty distance she saw in his. Grabbing her canvas bag off the floor, she turned and gave a brief salute. Her knuckles were white from attempting to walk down the stairs wearing armor with her injured leg. She was determined, but mindful not to rip her stitches.

It was almost sunset when Serien left the hotel though a backdoor.

T
HE RIGHTS OF
the fallen were held at sunset so the Mother could usher the souls of the dead to the Father’s eternal realms. Serien attended with the masses in the central square of the Crossroads, though none looked at her twice. She stared at the carefully crafted platform that held five bodies shrouded in red cloth.

One of them was Larel Neiress, the woman whom had spent countless hours putting Vhalla Yarl back together after the world had broken her. But this time, her hands had not been there, and Vhalla Yarl shattered into three pieces.

The crown prince stood before the bodies, stoic as a hooded crone sang the funeral dirge. Serien grit her teeth and walled her heart. She would not cry. She could not cry for a woman she had never met.

But her eyes were attentive and she saw as the crown prince was fixated on the fourth body. She felt the way his flames moved toward it at a base level that could not be explained away. She finally stepped out of the crowd as her stomach began to knot.

She was a drifter, a loner, the specter of the Crossroads with nowhere to be and no one to look for her. Serien perched herself under an archway of one of the many buildings, returning twice after being shoo’ed away. Eventually the owner finally stopped trying.

She watched the crowds move, blissful as life returned to normal. She saw a messy-haired Southerner go to the hotel with three large windows four times, returning to a familiar inn dejected and alone each time. The twinge of sadness crept up the back of her throat, which she quickly squashed—
emotions of another woman
.

When the army finally amassed in the square, prepared to march, Serien was an exhausted husk of a woman. She had barely slept out of fear, fear of what her treacherous mind may concoct and fear of sleeping in the open. She had no mount to speak of but instinctually fell into place in the center of the column. It was odd being surrounded by so much silver plate, but she quickly worked to accept it as her new normal.

Cheers erupted for the family Solaris as they left the hotel in full regalia. Six steeds had been lined up before the hotel, three were for the royals, the other three were for the dark-cloaked figures who walked at their side. Three women, almost identical in stature, with black hooded cloaks shrouding their faces walked next to each one of the royals. On the backs of their cloaks was a silver wing. It made for a beautiful target.

With vapid interest she watched one mount a black steed that had a white strip running down its face, like lightning. The woman was situated to the right of the crown prince, and Serien watched as the prince glanced at the woman before trotting toward his place in line.

“They could have at least tried to hide it,” one of the soldiers around her remarked.

“Not very hard to tell which one is the Windwalker,” another agreed.

“As if the Fire Lord would let his dark darling out of his sight.”

Serien didn’t join in their speculations as to the real relationship between the crown prince and the Windwalker Vhalla Yarl, but her ears heard. Most seemed to be in agreement that there was something between the two, but their theories were wide-reaching. Two men and a woman joined the younger prince as he fell into line with the hooded Windwalker.

“That’s enough, shape up!” an Easterner commanded.

Serien stared up at him as his horse found its way near her. The man with the golden bracer glanced down, meeting her stare. His eyes squinted slightly, and he opened his mouth to say something.