Father I beg you . . . “I’d hazard,” Lyrna said, “there are more crimes in your ledger than mine.”
“Ensuring the survival of my people compelled me to terrible acts, it is true. I have lied, I have corrupted, I have tortured and I have killed. And every crime I would commit again a thousand times to secure the same end. Remember this, Queen, when you watch the flames rise high, remember this and ask yourself: would I do this again?”
She moved closer, lifting the book Lyrna had examined and holding it out to her. “Removing even the smallest scrap from this place is punishable by death, but for you I think I can make an allowance. The meditations on divinity are particularly interesting. Reltak has much to say on the folly of dogma.”
“I can’t read it.”
“I think we both know a translation is well within your abilities. The Lonakhim text in the treaty will provide sufficient clues, I’m sure. And my bright spear will be there to help. She reads very well.”
“Davoka?”
“It is customary for nations at peace to exchange ambassadors, is it not? She will be mine.”
“Her . . . diplomacy will be very welcome. I shall of course arrange for a suitably qualified Realm official to present himself here as soon as possible.”
“As you wish, there’s no hurry. Just make sure you send a woman, unless you want your ambassador to gift me your Realm in its entirety.”
“Men are so easily captured by your beauty?”
“No, by the gift of a woman who died three centuries ago. Oddly, it only works on men.”
Lyrna took the book. “I regret I have nothing to offer in return.”
The Mahlessa’s scrutiny faded to an aspect of sombre reflection. “You are the gift,” she said. “Confirmation that it has all been for something.” She held out her hand and Lyrna took it. “They come, Queen, they come to tear it all down. Your world and mine. Look to the beast charmer when chains bind you.”
“Mahlessa?”
But she was gone again, replaced once more by the fearful girl, her hand trembling in Lyrna’s grasp, head cocked, eyes looking into hers with desperate fear. “How does it feel?” she asked and Lyrna realised she was repeating her question from before, unaware of time having passed since.
“I have killed no-one,” Lyrna told her.
“Oh . . .” Her eyes roamed Lyrna’s face. “No . . . Not there yet . . . But they will be.”
“What will?”
The girl smiled, teeth bright in the green glow. “The marks of your greatness.”
She made her way back to the steam chamber then up the spiral steps to the surface. She had lingered for more than an hour, asking question after question. “Who is the master the Mahlessa spoke of? What is his scheme? Who is coming to bring it all down?”
The fearful girl’s answers were no more than a jumble of confusion and riddle. “He waits in the void . . . He hungers . . . Oh how he hungers . . . My mother said I was the kindliest soul ever to grace the Lonakhim, I cut her throat with my father’s knife . . .”
After a while her rambling faded to silence and she slumped to the floor, listless, eyes vacant. Lyrna waited a while longer for the Mahlessa to return, but knew instinctively it wouldn’t happen. We will never meet again.
She sighed and touched the girl on the shoulder. “Did you earn a name?”
“Helsa,” the girl replied in a whisper. Healer, or saviour in the archaic form, depending on the inflection.
“I’m glad to have met you, Helsa.”
“Will you come to see me again?”
“I hope so, one day.”
This brought a smile, slipping from her lips as the vacant stare returned to her eyes. Lyrna squeezed her shoulder and returned to the tunnel. She didn’t turn for a final look, the sadness was too great.
She found the brothers and Smolen waiting for her when she returned to the surface. They were alone, the women who had greeted them gone to whatever duties the Mahlessa ordained.
“Alturk?” she asked Sollis.
“He left, Highness. Davoka spoke to him and he left.”
“Didn’t even say good-bye,” Ivern commented. “I was hurt.”
“Davoka?” Lyrna asked.
“Off caring for her sister somewhere,” the young brother said. “They’ve given us rooms the next level up.”
Lyrna nodded, looking down at the scroll in her hand.
“Your mission was a success, Highness?” Smolen ventured.
“Yes.” She forced a smile. “A great success. Rest well tonight, good sirs. We leave for the Realm come the dawn.”
The journey back to the Skellan Pass took the better part of two weeks, Davoka choosing an easier but longer route than the varied paths that brought them to the Mountain. Lyrna had offered to take Kiral with them but the Lonak woman refused. “Better cared for at the Mountain.”
“But you only just got her back,” Lyrna objected. “Don’t you want to stay a while? You can join me at court at any time.”
Davoka shook her head. “The Mahlessa commands,” was all she said.
In the evenings they would collaborate in translating The Wisdoms of Reltak, although Davoka found his verses somewhat troubling. “‘Divinity retains the appearance of insight,’” she read one evening, brows creased with a deep frown. “‘When in reality it celebrates ignorance. Its tenets are so much clay, and when the clay sets, it becomes dogma.’”
She looked at Lyrna over the top of the volume. “I don’t like this book.”
“Really? I find it rather charming.”
In the mornings Davoka would tutor her with the throwing knife, something they had neglected on the journey north. Brother Ivern soon joined in, finding a thin but broad piece of wood to use as a target. Sometimes he would toss it into the air, sending his own knives into the centre with a disconcerting speed and accuracy.
“I was always the best at toss-board,” he said. “Won more knives than any novice brother my age. Only Frentis could hope to match me.”
Frentis. A name Lyrna knew, her brother had spoken it many times. “You knew Brother Frentis?”
“We were in the same group at the Order House, Highness.”
“The King praises his courage highly. He said Untesh would have fallen on the first day if not for Brother Frentis.”
Ivern gave a sad smile. “That sounds like him. After the Test of the Sword he was sent to the Wolfrunners and I was sent here. I’m ashamed to say I was jealous, thinking him the lucky one.”
As the days passed she began to improve with the knife, finding the target with greater frequency, seeing the truth in Davoka’s words: Throw again . . . Again and again until you hit. Then you know how.
On the last morning, with the pass only one day’s ride away, as Ivern’s board fell to earth with her knife embedded in the centre, she could finally say she knew how.
Their return to the pass was greeted with some celebration and no small amount of surprise. The garrison had grown with the addition of a full regiment of Realm Guard cavalry, ordered by the King to venture into the Lonak Dominion in search of her. Fortunately, they had arrived the day before and preparations for their unwise expedition were far from complete.
“But you were attacked, Highness,” the regiment’s Lord Marshal objected when she told him to be ready to escort her south the next day. “Surely, the savages require some punishment. I would consider it an honour . . .”