Page 58 of Among the Burning Flowers
It was all true, then. All the things the intelligencers had reported.
‘After the creatures had left,’ the mercenary said, ‘I pressed on for about two miles. I wanted to finish our task, to reach Cárscaro, but you need send no more of us, Your Highness.The Pass of the Imperator is blocked. A rockfall, from the looks of it. I do not know if the Ersyri path is clear. Only that there is no longer any way from Yscalin to Mentendon.’
Aubrecht closed his eyes. His map was very old, but it had been his one and only hope.
‘You have my gratitude for trying,’ he said. ‘And you will receive thrice the pay I offered you.’
The mercenary nodded, but her face was drawn. She never took her dark eyes off the skull.
‘I couldn’t find any of the others,’ she said. ‘By the time I returned to the place we were attacked, the creatures had taken their bones.’
‘Their deaths honoured the Knight of Courage. I will pray for their safe deliverance to Halgalant,’ Aubrecht said. ‘Their families will be compensated.’ He gestured to the skull. ‘Take this to the High Sanctuary of Brygstad to be interred in the charnel garden. Tell them I sent you.’
‘Thank you, Prince Aubrecht.’
She took the skull and left. Aubrecht lowered his head into his hands.
For months, he had tried everything he could imagine to extract Marosa from Cárscaro. The first and second groups of mercenaries had not been able to find the Pass of the Imperator. The third had vanished altogether. Aubrecht had organised search parties to no avail.
During the winter, he had not been able to risk sending more, given the snow in the Spindles. A fourth group had found no trace of the third, but turned back in fear when a quake shook the mountains. Now this fifth group had been killed, he knew what had befallen the others.
‘No more,’ he said softly. ‘No more.’
****
He stood before his aunt that night, in the candlelight of her Privy Chamber. Liuthe did not chastise him, but he knew, from her tired expression, that she never expected his plans to succeed.
‘You must request an annulment from Queen Sabran,’ she told him in an undertone. ‘It is only a matter of time until she declares holy war. Yscalin can offer us no more protection. And we cannot have the Hróthi using your betrothal to tarnish us by association.’
‘There must be another way to Marosa. We could tell her uncle about the Pass of the Imperator.’
‘No, Aubrecht. That would be too far,’ Liuthe said. ‘We have no quarrel with the South, but informing the Ersyris of a vulnerability in Cárscaro would betray the Chainmail of Virtudom.’
‘Yscalin is no longer part of Virtudom.’
‘Its people still deserve our fellowship,’ she said. The fire crackled. ‘Only a few of our intelligencers have been able to return. They tell me the wyverns are in every city, watching the people, spreading the Draconic plague, killing anyone who tries to leave. And you know as well as I do that Cárscaro is impossible to approach unseen.’
Aubrecht looked away, his jaw working.
‘Why is this happening?’ he said. ‘Why are they trying to build a kingdom of their own?’
‘The wyrms are likely weak from centuries of slumber. This must be their way of establishing a haven,’ Liuthe said. ‘Perhaps even a breeding ground for more Draconic things.’
‘This is the beginning of the end, then.’
‘That is not like you, Aubrecht. You are the most devout and hopeful of us all, and you must remain so, regardless of your grief.’
Aubrecht lifted his gaze. Liuthe returned it, as steely as ever.
‘I will send a bird to Ascalon,’ Aubrecht said. ‘But as long as I live, I will never believe Marosa Vetalda is a willing servant of the Nameless One. I believe that we are abandoning her to her doom, and that I am failing her by ending this betrothal. The Saint will punish me for it.’
Liuthe gave him a sad, tender look.
‘You are a kind young man, Aubrecht. You always were,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it pains me that you must rule.’ She sank deeper into her seat. ‘Leovart will die very soon. I imagine I will follow in due course.’
‘You might yet live for many years, Aunt.’
‘The sweating sickness never did release its grip upon my bones.’ She cast a weary look towards the nearest portrait. ‘And … I miss Edvart and Lesken. I am ready to join them.’
