Shadow's End (Light & Shadow) (23 page)

Miriel broke the silence by reaching by holding out the leather case.  “The treaty,” she said
, as if she had forgotten for a time, and only now remembered why Wilhelm was here, meeting with her secretly. Wilhelm took it from her, looking awed. I waited as he went to the chair and began to read, lost to the world. He held the treaty as if it were a precious artifact—the bones of a saint, the first crown of the Heddrian kings. He sat and he read, in silence, and, to my shock, he wept. At that, at last, Miriel’s reserve broke. She went to stand at his side, and she held to his hand as the tears ran down his face.

At last, his hands shaking, he dipped the waiting quill in ink and put his name to the treaty, dropping wax by his name and pressing his signet ring down. The Conradine crest, crown an
d sword, shone in the dim light. It was done; I let out a breath that I did not know I had been holding.

“If we survive, we will build a new world,” he told her, and she smi
led despite the fear. If I did not succeed, then death awaited us all tomorrow. And after that, treachery.

“You think you can hold the Council to this?”

“I am their King,” he said simply, and his mouth twitched in a smile. “And if there were one thing to decree, this would be that one thing.”

“They will not deny you?” she asked, and he shook his head.

“When Catwin came to speak to me—“ he nodded his head at me, I raised my eyebrows, impressed that he remembered my name “—I wrote a proclamation, to be sent as soon as the battle is won.” His jaw tightened, but he did not admit the possibility of defeat.

“Whether I live or die, it will be sent out, saying that I have signed this document, and that it is my will that the people of Heddred live as equals. The lords can argue with me if they wish, but it is done—and all their people will know it.
” He looked up at her, and there was hope in his eyes. “Will you stay, to advise me?”

My eyes went to Miriel’s face, and I found that I was holding my breath. It was no longer any choice of mine—tomorrow, by dawn, I would
be dead, and she would be alone in the world. If she wished to stay in the court, it was not mine to deny her that; but I was terribly afraid. If she remained, she would be faced every day with the nobles who hated her passionately, with the Queen who feared her, with the three most ruthless men I knew who had wanted her dead and gone. I felt my heart ease as she shook her head.

“I cannot stay,” she told him, and she tried to smile at his look of despair.

“Do not leave me,” he begged her, and she knelt at his side, taking his hand in hers.

“Your Grace,” she said, “your reign will be glorious. You will bring a new age, an enlightened age. I would be at your side if I could; but the throne must be unified, above the shadow of rumor. I have given you what I could by bringing you this treaty. But when the battle is done, I must go.”

“Where will you go?” he asked her, and Miriel’s brow furrowed.

“Voltur, perhaps. In truth, I do not know.” She closed her eyes briefly. “But I do know that I must go. And you must go now, your Grace, before anyone notices that you have gone.” She stood, moving away as he also stood. He held out his arms to her, but she shook her head, her jaw clenched. “Please,” she said simply, and he bowed his head and left without a word. Miriel looked over at me and her eyes were bright.

“May I be alone, please?” she asked, her voice small, and after a moment’s thought, I decided that she would be safe enough with her uncle’s soldiers to guard her.

“I’ll be back soon,” I said softly, and I left her, and went to find Roine to say my goodbyes.

Chapter 25

I searched the healers’ quarters at the back of the camp, but Roine was not there, and none of the other healers were able to tell me where she had gone. I made a round of the great camp, hastening after each white robe that I saw, but as the sky began to darken, I knew that I had missed her. For a moment, I thought I might burst into tears, out in the open as I was. I did not think that I could face this night without saying goodbye to Roine. Then I thought of her face, thought of what she would say when I told her where I was going, and I thought that perhaps it was better this way. She had told me that she would not live to see the end of the battle, and if tomorrow dawned without a fight, and it was I who had died and she who had lived—then she would, at least, have made her peace with not seeing me again.

But it was very bitter, indeed, to know that we had parted in anger. I would never again feel her arms around me, and at that thought, I felt the tears spill over, down my cheeks. I ducked my head as I returned to the campsite, pushing past the soldiers who were hurrying to and fro, setting up their camps and making ready for the morrow.

At our camp, surrounded by her uncle’s men, Miriel had at last emerged from her tent and was—to raucous cheers—singing a rend
ition of “The Western Mountains.” As she sang of winter nights and the women of Voltur, the men hummed along, wiped tears from their eyes, and hoisted their tankards to her. I smiled to see it: with her grief put aside, she was glowing. The uncertainty of the past weeks had fled, and even Wilhelm’s marriage could not dull her pure happiness that he had signed the treaty, that he loved her still and had not betrayed her.

When sh
e saw me, however, her face sobered, and as soon as she had finished the song, she came to sit with me, bringing me a mug of beer. There were no words left to speak; I smiled my thanks and we sat for a time, enjoying the simple camaraderie. But abruptly, the closeness of the people, the roar of the cheers and the heat of the fire became too much. I stood, gulping down the rest of my mug of ale, and slipped away into the tent, hoping that Miriel would have seen that I must be alone, and that she would not follow.

In the tent, I
leaned against the desk and gasped for air. I wondered what it was like to be a soldier of the army, praying that they would live to see the end of tomorrow. Knowing that I would not was more than I could fathom. I thought I might be sick, and as I stared at the pattern of the rug, willing myself not to vomit, I realized that I did not want to die.

I nearly laughed at that. No one wanted to die, I knew that. But I had told myself that my wish and my purpose were one, and that I truly wanted to do this. By this act, I would turn every moment spent learning to sneak, and spy, and murder, into something worthwhile. I could not deny that I wanted that—but I could not deny, either, that I did not want to go. I could feel panic in my frantic heartbeat, a rising urge to run away, be a coward and live.

I had just decided to go to Temar, and beg him to go with me now, so that I did not need to wait any longer, when I froze, considering. At last, in the quiet of the tent, I could recognize a feeling that had been nagging at me all day—the call of the mountains, the sense of the chill air, the lonely whistle of the wind. I thought I could hear the echo of my mother’s voice, calling across the years. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I knelt on the carpets, my back to the doorway. I laid my hands on my knees to still the trembling, and then I bowed my head and I waited, stilling my mind, trying to listen.

I did
not know how much time had passed before I heard the footsteps approach, slipping around the back of the tent, a shadow out of the corner of my vision, cast along the canvas wall. There was a pause before the tent flap was pulled aside, long enough for me to doubt everything, to think that I had indeed gone mad, and this was nothing more than idle fancy. But at last the fabric moved, and I felt, rather than saw, the figure move to stand behind me. I gave one last breath out, trying to empty my mind, and then I whirled, driving my shoulder up and knocking my attacker backwards as their knife flashed down. I grabbed their wrist, twisting, and I heard a cry of pain, hastily bitten off. As we stumbled and fell, my hands seeking their throat, the hood fell back.

Roine.

I froze, dumbstruck, and she rolled, pushing me so that I sprawled onto the hard-packed ground. She lunged for the knife, and as her fingers curled around the haft and she swept the blade back. It was only instinct that saved me. A hundred, a thousand drills moved my muscles into a block, even as my mind went blank. My foot lashed out and caught Roine in the stomach, and she doubled over; it was quick enough work to strike out, pressing the tips of my fingers into a pressure point until she gasped and the knife fell from her fingers. I shoved her back, snatching up the knife myself, and the two of us settled into a wary fighter’s crouch, her at the back of the tent and me blocking her egress.

For a moment, I could not speak. At this vital moment, I found that I had no words to ask what I must. I only stared at her, and she stared back; her jaw was clenched, her eyes bright, but there was no uncertainty in her gaze, and no remorse.

“You?” I whispered finally, and her jaw clenched even as her mouth trembled.

“Who else?” she asked bitterly, and the breath fled from my lungs and left me gasping. There was a terrible truth in her words—there was no one else, there had never been anyone else. How many could I say that I had trusted without question, never doubting, never wondering? One. There was only one.
I had doubted Temar, I had doubted even Miriel; only Roine had never earned my suspicion.

“But why?” I could make no sense of any of it, and I shrank away when I saw the rush of utter hatred in her eyes. 

“Do you not know what you are?” she spat. “Did you heed none of the prophecy, do you not understand that this had to happen?”

“
Why
?” The word burst out of me, I could form none other. At last, Roine drew herself up, the pain falling away from her.

“For the rebellion,” she said, as if it were self-evident. “What else?
You were the key, the last piece of it all.” I gaped. I had grown up listening to her passionate speeches on nobles and common people, on the rights of the few and the many. She had been the staunchest supporter of Miriel’s interest in the rebellion. And yet it had never occurred to me that Roine might truly be a part of the uprising, sheltered as she had been in Voltur, isolated as she seemed to be even at the palace.

Unbidden, the connections began to form in my mind: her hours of prayer in the chapel, the way the High Priest had known my name—known anything about me, known about Miriel, and that he should not oppose her as a match for the King.
It was coming together with awful clarity. How many times had she warned me of undercurrents, of movements larger than myself and larger than the Court? She had taught me the principles of the rebellion almost from the cradle, muttering about the excesses of nobles, derisive of the courts. And she had been placed, always, to strike: because it had been I, always, who had told her where her targets would be.

“
How could you not
know
?” she cried, suddenly, and at last I understood the hatred in her eyes. Her pleas for me to go, her endless insistence that I run away from court, her tears in the wake of the first murder attempt—it had not been a clever pretense, an exquisitely-made trap. She had loved me, and she had warned me to run away, out of her reach. She had pleaded with me, I remembered. She had begged me to go, and I had never understood.

“How could I?” I flung the words back in her face. “I should have guessed that it would be you who would poison me? The woman who raised me?”

“There was no one else it could be!” she cried back. “You should have run!”

“I should have?” I fought the urge to hurl the knife at her—not the precise throw Donnett had drilled into me,
only the simple, childish urge to lash out. “How could you?” I asked, my voice cracking. “How could you—“

“Do you think there was any way out of this?” Her eyes were wild. “
This is what you were born to be, Catwin—there is no cheating fate!”

“Fate? You think this was fate?” I did not think I had ever felt anger like this; my vision seemed to cloud. I could hardly feel my feet on the ground or the knife in my grip. “You took the words of a village woman and you thought it meant you had to kill me?”

“Oh? And you have not dreamed of it?” she challenged me. “You have not heard your mother’s words and believed them?”

“It’s different! I saw the prophecy—and I have not—“ I broke off. Roine had tried, time and again, to kill me; but where she had failed
in her missions, I had succeeded. She had sought my death, but of the two of us, I was the murderer. It was I who had taken a vial of poison and tipped it into the Duke’s mouth, knowing full well what I did.

“And I saw the prophecy as well,” Roine said strangely. Her face had been drained of all color; she was far away in memory, hardly moving. “I was twelve when
I dreamed of it, and they told me my fate—when they turned me out. I had a soul condemned to hell, they said. I would never be redeemed. I was cast out of the monastery, to wander, and I heard a voice call me to Voltur. I arrived at the castle barefoot, alone. I begged a post, and I waited—“ She broke off, her eyes closing in pain, and when she spoke again, her voice was so soft that I could hardly hear it.

“I waited
so long that I began to think it had been nothing but a lie. And then…there was you. They gave you into my keeping.” Her eyes focused on my stricken face, and, horribly, she smiled. “And so now you see. You have to die, and it has to be me who kills you. But you are here for the rebellion. You understand—you know that there can be nothing more worthy than this. The Heddred you know will fall, and another will rise in its place. It will be built on our ashes, yours and mine.”

“No,” I said. I could not have said if it was
a true prophecy, or only a reflex, the simple will of a beast to avoid its own slaughter.

“Catwin, you cannot fight this any longer.” She held out her hand to me, still smiling her terrible smile. I knew that smile—it was the gentle smile she had used as she cleaned my skinned knees, taught me to grind herbs, first watched me run. She had smiled so when she kissed my forehead and wished me a good night’s sleep. “Give me the knife,” she said.

“How will my death give you what you wish?” I asked, genuinely fearful. The confidence in her voice terrified me—I wanted to reach out and put the knife in her hand. I wanted to believe her.

“Do you not wish it, too? It is not for me to question the Gods, Catwin. You and I will pay for the world that must be created, but can y
ou not see that it is necessary? Have you never wanted your life to mean something?” At that fatal question, the echo of Temar’s words, I felt myself come alive.

“It will,” I said, my voice shaking. “There is more that I must do, and through it you shall have my death, if that is what you want. But not now, not here.”

“No,” she said, at last. She was incredulous. “You cannot deny this, Catwin. This must be. You and I both, all of us—through our deaths, the rebellion will be born. And it must be me who takes your life.” She stepped forward and I pulled the knife out of her reach, behind my back.

“Leave now,” I told her, my voice growing stronger. “Leave me and run, because I swear, if I survive this night, I will find you.”
It was a lie; I could never have brought myself to seek her out and kill her. But neither could I face her again. More than anything, I wanted her to go. If I survived, I could never forgive her; I could not bear to see her again.

“You will not,” she said, finally beginning to grow angry once more. “I must do this, and you will not stop me.”

“I will not?” I actually laughed. “You cannot win.” I thought of the hours of practice, drills of blocks and strikes, tumbling and grappling, throws. I was quicker, stronger. I was better trained. I was incredulous, but Roine only smiled.

“The Gods will guide me.” And she lunged for me, stumbling as I circled away. With terror, I realized that my muscles were sluggish, horror slowing my reflexes. I knew what I must do. She had no armor, no defense; one quick strike and I could
end this—if not with her dagger, then with my own. But I could not bring myself to do it.

“What have you done to me?” I asked, horrified, still
trying to move, and she smiled.

“This
is the Gods’ will, Catwin.”

I barely saw the movement behind her before her face changed
, shock and pain twisting her expression away from its awful certainty.

“It is not the Gods’ will,” Miriel said simply, as she jerked a dagger free from Roine’s falling body. She looked down at the woman on the ground, and her face was like ice. “And if you wanted Catwin’s death, then you should have known that you would need to reckon with me.” She watched, impartial as an executioner, as Roine died, wordless, at her feet, and then Miriel dropped her knife, stepped over m
y mother’s body and hurried to my side

“Are you hurt?” she asked, urgently. “There’s blood on the knife, did she harm you?”

“No,” I said, surprised into response. I looked down, and saw, as Miriel had said, dried blood on the blade. “This isn’t mine.”