Page 18 of Magick and Lead
“Another.”
9
ESSA
In the hush of predawn darkness, voices pulled me from sleep. Shouts. The wailing of a child. I blinked my eyes open and stared at the raftered ceiling, momentarily disoriented. Then, I remembered where I was. Not in my bedroom at the royal palace Charcain. That place was gone, its opaline walls crumbled, and the beautiful capital city of Issastar was gone with it. I was in the longhouse, in the village, a rebel in my own kingdom.
Another shout from outside. I rolled off my mattress, threw a cloak over my shoulders and strapped on my sword as I strode to the door.
What is it?I asked Othura as I went. She was sleeping outside and would already have eyes on the disturbance.
Country folk,she said.A lot of them. You’d better come.
I emerged from the longhouse to find a crowd of people gathered, half of them trying to talk at once. A tall woman stood at the crowd’s forefront, addressing Ollie. At the sight of me, there were a few exclamations.
“It’s Essaphine!”
“The queen!”
The whole crowd knelt as one. They were disheveled, I saw, with torn clothes and smudges of soot on faces. Some had injuries, cuts, burns, and bruises.
“Rise, please. What’s going on?” I asked.
Half a dozen of them began shouting at once.
“Quiet,” I called, and pointed to the tall woman at their forefront. “You. Speak.”
She nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty. We’re from the village of Quorn, on the south side of the lake. We were attacked. They burned the farms, tore down the longhouse, and put everyone to the sword.”
“How many?” I demanded, a chill of rage flowing into my veins.
“We were a village of five hundred, Your Majesty. We are all that is left. Thirty-nine of us.”
Sobs erupted from somewhere behind the woman. Many buried their faces in their hands, but the woman continued to regard me with eyes as hard as granite.
“Who did it?” Ollie asked. “Lacunae? Golenae?”
The woman shook her head.
“Common folk. Like us. But they had a leader, a witch of the Gray Brotherhood. Lady Amberleigh, they call her.”
I looked to Ollie.
“You know her?”
Ollie frowned. “Lady Morlaya Amberleigh, I believe. I’ve heard the name. She was from a noble family out of the east, the story goes, and was given as a tribute to the Brothers at a young age. I don’t know much else about her. The Brothers have many acolytes, mages, mages in training... Some of them are female. Many don’t advertise their power until it comes time to use it.”
“She was very powerful,” the village woman said. “The fire that burned the villages came from her. But it…” She searchedfor words. “It wasn’t normal fire.” She shook her head, seeming to know her explanation was insufficient.
“What were they after?” Ollie asked. “Were they stealing food? Taking captives? Just killing indiscriminately?”
The woman’s haunted eyes landed on me. “They were searching for her. For the queen.”
At her words, my heart seemed to pause its beating.
“The mage said she could sense Essaphine was near the lake,” the woman went on. “And she knew the people were harboring her. She demanded we produce Essaphine or tell her where she was. Of course, many of us knew you were here, Your Majesty, but no one would give up your location. Several of the strangers tried to convince us—they were commoners, like us, but they seemed to have allegiance to the Gray Brothers. They broke us up into groups and took us into rooms and started by telling us terrible lies about you, to convince us to join them.”
I set my jaw, my anger rising. “What sort of lies?”
