Numbly, he made his way through the ruin of the familiar manor, but found neither life nor any sign of recent habitation. He slipped from the back entrance into the terraced yards of which his mother had once been so proud. The gardens with their carefully tended hedge mazes and roses had been ridden down, and parts of them had burned.
Soterius found it difficult to breathe. He looked down over the sloping yard, toward the barns that were now charred timbers, and toward the fields that appeared to have been torched instead of harvested. Gone, all of it gone, he thought in shock. All gone—
- He heard a crunch of ice behind him, and then a cry. Soterius could not see his attacker, but the man had to be at least double his bulk and a good bit taller; he easily crushed Soterius to the ice-covered ground and pinned him with his knee. He grabbed for Soterius's sword hand and slammed Soterius's knuckles against the ground until he could pry the sword away and throw it well out of reach.
"There's nothing left to take, thief," a man's voice rasped near Soterius's ear. "Your kind has taken it all. Give me one reason I shouldn't slit your whore-spawned throat!"
Soterius felt the blade of a knife press against his skin. He struggled in his shock to place the voice.
"I'm not a thief!" Soterius said. "I'm Lord Soterius's son."
He heard a rush of air and a strangled cry from his attacker, who was suddenly lifted from off his back. Soterius scrambled to turn over and saw Mikhail, holding a burly man aloft with one hand so that the man's feet dangled a few inches off the ground.
"You!" the man gasped. "I should slit your throat! It's because of you they're dead—they're all dead!"
Shaken, Soterius regained his feet. Mikhail returned the attacker to the ground but did not remove his hand from the assailant's neck. Although the man was unkempt and an unruly growth of beard altered his appearance, Soterius recognized his brother-in-law, Danne. Danne's words gave him no doubt as to the fate of his sister, Tae.
"Danne, what happened?"
"Soldiers came just after the Haunts. When your father met them at the door, they ran him through. Your mother, your brothers, the children, Tae—the soldiers chased them down, through the house, into the fields and killed them. Even the servants. All but Anyon, who hid in the well. I was gone to market with Coalan. When we came back, the fires were still smoking. Everything was gone."
Soterius staggered, and fell more than sat on the remnant of the garden wall.
"Anyon said that as your father lay dying, the soldiers told him that you were a traitor, that you had helped to kill King Bricen and then fled like a coward."
Soterius closed his eyes for a moment, unable to speak. It was Mikhail who broke the silence. "Is that what you still believe?" the uayash mom asked. He released Danne's throat, but stood between Danne and Soterius, blocking the big man's way.
Danne glared at Soterius; his shoulders sagged as the fight left him. "At first, we knew nothing else. But it made no sense, none at all. Ban had no reason to kill the king, and no profit from it." Danne's pain was clear in his eyes.
"I've known Ban since we were boys. I feared he might die for the king, but betray him—never." He took a heaving breath that shook his large form. "Since then, since Jared took the throne, we heard rumors... that Prince Martris survived, that he was spirited out of the palace, that his friends had gotten him to safety. I wanted to believe that. I wanted to believe you saved the prince, and that he might return. But seeing you, here, alive—you didn't see how they died, Ban. You didn't have to bury them. You didn't have to bury them." He covered his face with his hands.
"Tris and I saw Jared stab Bricen," Soterius said tonelessly. "We had climbed down the outside wall, trying to break into Arontala's workshop. We saw the king die. We found Serae—and Kait—dead by the sword. It was all Carroway and I could do to get Tris out of there alive. Harrtuck joined us, and we headed east." The full moon cast blue shadows across the ice-covered landscape. He was so chilled by the cold and so numb from grief that the words seemed to belong to someone else. "That's why I'm here. To help Tris take back the throne. To bring Jared to account. To destroy Arontala."
"Can he do it?" Danne asked. "He's no older than you are."
"He's a Summoner, Danne. Bava K'aa's mage heir. He's got the backing of three kings and the Blood Council. He'll take the throne—or die trying." He stopped, feeling his throat close again. "I wish father could have known the truth."
"Perhaps he does," Danne said. "They say the dead are watching." He looked toward the old kitchen house, and Soterius saw a thin wisp of smoke rising from its chimney. "Come on. Anyon and Coalan have a fire started. I'm sorry what I said—about slitting your throat. I swear to you on Tae's grave, I'll cause you no harm."
"Accepted. But first," Soterius said, "first, show me where they're buried. Please."
Danne hesitated, and then nodded. "All right. Follow me."
Soterius and Mikhail followed Danne down through the ruins of the garden, toward a stand of tall trees near the broken fence line. Under the massive oak trees was a large cairn. Soterius gave a strangled cry and fell to his knees, weeping.
"We did the best we could, the three of us," Danne recounted quietly. "Those that didn't die in the fire we bathed and shrouded and brought out here. We wrapped the others, what we found of them, and then we raised a cairn because the ground was too cold to dig. There was no one but ourselves to send them to the Lady, but we gave them our blessing." In the moonlight, Danne looked tired and old, though he was only a few years Soterius's senior. "By the Whore, no man should have to do that. Many's the night I wish I'd gone with them."
"I'm so sorry," Soteiius said.
"I don't mind the cold, but perhaps we should take shelter or you may have your wish," Mikhail said gently. Soterius struggled to his feet, following silently as Danne led the way back to the kitchen house.
Inside were a man in his third decade and a boy who looked about five years younger than Soterius. They looked up as Danne entered. Soterius recognized the man as Anyon, his father's grounds keeper, and Danne's son, Coalan. Anyon moved with a limp that was new, and Soterius saw a deep scar slashed across his cheek. Coalan's light brown hair and hazel eyes looked so like his mother that it almost made Soterius weep for his lost sister. Coalan regarded the two newcomers with suspicion, his eyes glinting with loss and fear.
This time, it was Danne who told Anyon and Coalan of Soterius's tale. Soterius saw questions in the eyes of the two men, but to his great relief, neither seemed inclined to doubt the story.
The kitchen house was filled with the remnants of what could be salvaged from the manor, bits of charred furniture, cookware, a few books that still smelled of smoke, and lanterns. Pieces of heavy tapestries covered the windows, keeping any passers-by from seeing the light within.
"We've made do off the land," Anyon said, setting a piece of roasted venison and some leeks in front of Soterius, along with a wineskin. Mikhail raised a hand to forestall a similar offer. "Deer and game from the forest, some fish from the stream, and what was left in the fields that didn't burn. Some of the stores in the cellars weren't ruined, so we've had wine and dried fruit and cheese. Enough to get by."
"What will you do, now that it's almost planting season?" Soterius asked.
Danne met his eyes. "I guess that's up to the lord of the manor." Soterius's eyes widened as he took Danne's meaning. With his father and older brothers dead, the title and lands now fell to him. It was a windfall as undesired as it was unexpected.