He was death.
She swept away a lunge, tried to riposte into him. Her thoughts had ceased and she had no time for them. Her feet, her body, her blade, everything depended on her instincts, her reflexes, faster and faster. She took his blows and turned them into her own attacks, over and over. He was always there with a parry that led, as though some natural law compelled it, into another series of blistering attacks. He was faster still. He was picking his pace up, and her breathing was ragged. She had almost stopped using her eyes, long since stopped using her mind. The blows came out of blackness, and she heard them as much as saw them. She fended them off and fended them off. She had stopped attacking. He left her no room for it. Then her rapier blade was abruptly caught between his forearm and his claw, and as she tried to draw it back he rushed forward. She felt the hilt twist in her hand and held on to it hard, and he turned his arm and dashed it against the sewer wall, and her blade, her beautiful blade that Stenwold had bought for her, snapped at the guard, leaving not even a sharp stub.
He was going to kill her.
She cried out then. The link between them was enough, still, to let her know that he would strike.
She was braced for it, with a dignity that surprised her in the face of death at her father’s hands. She felt the cold edge of his blade. It was at her throat, of course. He had his habits, as did any fighter. Her breath sobbed into and out of her lungs, and beyond it she heard his, too. She imagined him using all his control to hold back the killing stroke.
But it was not like that. He was now still as still, no struggle. Her eyes slowly grew accustomed to the light within the very grey periphery of their lantern. His face was merely a faint pale outline on which no expression could be discerned.
She did not trust herself to speak or make any sound at all, and he too was silent.
Then the blade moved, and she forced herself not to flinch. It did not slide away, though. Instead she felt the flat of it against her cheek, cupping her face more towards him, then this way and that, his eyes straining to see her.
And then it was gone from her, folding back along his arm. He turned, merely a silhouette, leaning against the sewer wall with one hand. She noticed the rise and fall of his breathing.
She could have killed him, though she realized this only later, so glad the idea had not then occurred to her.
‘You are my daughter,’ he said finally. ‘And by my damned soul, you are hers.’
The words struck her almost physically, as he never had. Something wrenched inside her, and she let her sword hilt fall from raw fingers. She approached him with faltering steps, feeling her breath catch.
‘Nothing you said was untrue,’ continued Tisamon. ‘I have lived with false betrayal for seventeen long years, and with the truth for only days.’
She wanted to say something to him then, some damning condemnation of him, or even some words of sympathy, but she could manage neither. Sobs began racking her so hard they hurt.
When he turned to her at last, she saw the kindred tracks of grief down his own face.
She thought he would not be able to bear to touch her. The wounds were freshly reopened, the blood still redly flowing. Still, when she approached him he put a hand on her shoulder, at first as tentative as a man reaching for a nettle, then stronger, as the man who grasps it.
Awkwardly he took her in his arms, his daughter, and she clung to him, her face pressed into his chest, with his golden brooch cold against her cheek.
Thirty
Che woke slowly, fearfully. There was the rustle around her of people moving about, a murmur of low voices. She was lying on a hard mat of woven straw and a cloak was laid over her. There was an echo, but not the familiar tight echo of a small cell relieved only by Salma’s close breathing. This was some larger space, amid some multitude. She had no idea where she could be.
And then it came to her with a leap of joy that she only needed to know where she was not.
She was not in her cell. She was not in Thalric’s power.
The pieces were falling into place.
They had come for her. Tynisa and the Moth and the others.
She was free.
At the thought, Che sat bolt upright with a gasp of breath. The darkness around her resolved itself, dimmed into grey shades more penetrable to her eyes. Her Art showed her a vaulted, subterranean roof, other sleeping forms. At the far wall, where her gaze was inevitably drawn, was the robe-wrapped form of Achaeos, with his head slightly bowed. She realized that only she could see his gleaming eyes from within the cowl. To her they almost shone, where there would be darkness for anyone else. A moment ago she had not even recalled his name.
She peered further around the room. There were almost two-score people sleeping here in rough ranks, and half a dozen standing watch, or perhaps just having woken before dawn as she had. Some crumbling cellar, this was. Probably she had seen it before when they came in but she had no memory.
‘Che,’ said a voice, soft from behind her, and she craned back to see Totho. He had been sitting at the head of her mattress almost like Achaeos’s opposite number. Instinctively she reached out to him, grasped his wrist, just to be sure that he was real, that it all was real.
‘I-’
‘You should try to sleep more. There’s a little while till dawn yet,’ he said.
‘I’ve lost all sense of time,’ she told him. ‘Where are we?’
‘Some hideout of the resistance here. They got us into the palace to help you.’ He glanced about, his face darkening. ‘They didn’t do much more than that. They were more keen on finding this leader of theirs.’
‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘So long as it worked, I don’t care.’ She looked around suddenly, panicking. ‘Where’s Salma? Did he-?’
‘He’s got the sense to still be asleep,’ said Totho pointedly. ‘He’s over there. He looked after you well, then?’
‘We looked after each other. It was complicated. I think it might have gone worse for us but the man who took us prisoner had some other business to deal with and he never quite got around to us.’ Her face hardened, enough to make Totho flinch. ‘Are we going back to Helleron now, Toth?’
‘No idea. Probably.’
‘I’ve got a message for my Uncle Elias.’
He shook his head. ‘No point trying to deliver that. Tisamon killed him, Stenwold told me.’
‘Tisamon? The Mantis?’
Totho nodded soberly. ‘He’s. . To tell the truth he frightens me. Che. .?’
‘Yes?’
‘I. .’ His face, as usual, gave no clue as to his mind. He had grown up with the weight of mixed blood on his shoulders, and he had learned to hide himself deep. ‘I. . I’m glad you’re safe.’
‘Not half as much as I am,’ she replied with feeling. ‘Totho, I want to see the sky again.’
‘The sky?’
‘I’ve been in wagons and in fliers and in cells for days and days now. I don’t care if it’s night. I just want to be outside. Just to stand in the doorway of this place will be enough. I’ll come back in straight away if anyone’s there.’
She stood up awkwardly, stretching, and bundled the dark cloak about her. After a moment he took her hand and guided her around the main body of the sleepers, nodding reassuringly to any Mynans who were already awake, and nervously to Tisamon, who was over in one corner, carefully sharpening and oiling the blade of his claw.
There were a couple of sentries outside, one lounging in the street like a homeless beggar, the other two floors up with a crossbow, watching down over the little square. The night was chill, the sky like pin-studded velvet, untroubled by clouds. They paused in the doorway, looking out, and in halting words Totho did his best to explain what had transpired since that fateful day in Helleron had separated them. He made most of it clear to her: Scuto’s intervention, Stenwold’s interview with Elias and the appearance of Tisamon, the hunt leading to Asta, and from there to the gates of Myna.