The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

“Our knowledge is not your concern,” said Lycellias. “What of enchantments?”

“None exist now,” said Lord Verengir, and sighed. “Hanyi and Gedomir were competent enough for temporary matters, but those with the truly intricate skills perished years ago. Roslina was weaker, or less pure, than we anticipated. A pity.” He did look truly sorrowful, though Branwyn wouldn’t have laid odds on it being out of human caring rather than regret over lost resources.

“Yes,” said Lycellias, tilting his head slightly. “How was it that she and the babe perished?”

“She burned. Her and those around her. From inside.” Branwyn, who’d seen Gizath’s fire at work, shuddered. The wind blew past her again, ice edged and implacable. Verengir’s face twisted in effort, but his mouth opened again, and he said, in a voice not entirely his own, “But the boy lived.”

“What?” Branwyn and Yathana spoke at once.

“Explain,” Lycellias commanded.

“The boy survived. Alive, in a heap of ashes. There was great potential there.”

“Where is he?” the knight asked.

Verengir laughed, dry and thin. “We’ve been trying to discover that for years.” He didn’t try to resist this time. “It was before we’d learned to ensure the servants’ loyalty. We assumed them schooled enough in the proper order not to interfere. The child thrived. Alize and Hanyi tended him, as was proper. Then our manservant vanished, and the boy with him.” The old man hissed at the memory. “We found the man and dealt with him, but he never said what became of the babe.”

Branwyn silently made the sign of the Four for the butler. However long it had taken the man to see the truth, he’d done well at the end, and died for it—likely in torment. She saw Zelen gulp and Lycellias’s sharp-angled features grow harder.

“And you seek him still?” the knight asked.

“Of course. If he can be…taught…he’s valuable. If not, his death will release the crucial element to go elsewhere. Now, likely, it’ll be into the nearest biddable host, not one trained and prepared as we would have done.” Verengir shook his head. “Thyran was always a hasty idiot. I’ll never know why my great-uncle told him as much as he did, but…”

Lycellias raised his hand. “We have no more need of your speech, nor of you,” he said. The other two knights stepped forward, each taking the man by one shoulder. “Go now, and reflect, if you will, on what you’ve done in this world.”

He might. One never knew. But Branwyn didn’t have much hope. From Lycellias’s tone, she doubted that the knight did either.

Chapter 43

The council delivered their decision a week after Lord Verengir confessed, after the executioners had done their duty and the bodies had been distributed in pieces to the four quarters of Heliodar, after an entire flock of rumors had flown about the city.

Branwyn stood in the chamber where she’d come on her first day, wearing the same blue wool gown she’d worn then, and the same bronze-and-opal torc around her neck. She bore Yathana openly at her waist now, though, and the council didn’t treat her as if she was a new problem or a foreign curiosity. A few regarded her with admiration. Others looked at her like an omen of doom: the Skull card in a fortune-teller’s deck, the black dog at the crossroads.

Two who’d been there before were simply absent. Marior Rognozi sat in her uncle’s place, though without his rank on the council, absorbing the goings-on.

Verengir’s spot had vanished, without even an empty chair to mark it.

“The rot went too far,” Zelen had explained a few nights before, as Branwyn lay beside him in bed. “I’m the only immediate heir who survived, and…well, I’ll be surrendering my title soon enough, won’t I? Hardly the sort to sit in judgment for the city. Best for the council to go down a member, until some other house works its way to prominence. It won’t be long.”

“You don’t sound as though you regret the loss of your position,” said Branwyn.

“I can come up with more enjoyable ones,” he’d replied, and kissed her.

Recovery, and delay, had had their benefits.

Now Branwyn waited with her hands clasped in front of her and tried not to speculate. The decision would be what it would be. She and Yathana—and the Sentinels, as a whole—would have to make their plans from the next moment onward, and she could do nothing until then.

High Lord Kolovat came forward to the edge of the dais, the circlet still a trifle small on his brow. “Madam—Sentinel Branwyn,” he said, “the council has heard your request, and that of your Order and Criwath behind you.”

“And I thank you, all of you, for so hearing,” Branwyn replied.

Winter light shone in from the stained-glass window behind the high lord, casting patches of green and yellow on his white robe. They were very faint, however. The sky outside was overcast.

In the corner, a scribe lifted their pen from parchment and waited. Now there would be notes. Later, perhaps, a formal proclamation.

“Given recent events,” said Kolovat, “we can’t deny that our ancient enemy is at work again, nor that the power behind him endangers us all. For that reason, and in retribution for the suborning of Heliodar’s nobility, we do here and now declare that we join Criwath and the Sentinels in the war against Thyran, against his reprehensible patron Gizath, and against the forces that seek to destroy what mortalkind has worked so hard to rebuild.”

Lady be praised, said Yathana. I could kiss the old walrus, if I had flesh.

Branwyn felt the floor grow more solid beneath her feet as a number of potential futures suddenly joined into one that she could count on. She was glad, but not joyous—given the sober, measured fear in Kolovat’s face and the red rims around Yansyak’s eyes, she didn’t think joy would have been right then. Even Yathana had spoken mostly in relief.

Marton looked joyous, which made Branwyn briefly doubt the whole endeavor.

That didn’t matter. She knew her response