A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Time passed, and the world kept burning. Tunuva fought beasts in the Crimson Desert. She shot wyverns and winged snakes from the sky. She and Denag rode east together, delivering a precious bottle of plague remedy to Queen Daraniya. Soshen and Siyāti had been right.

At last, Esbar summoned them all back to their home, for the Priory had been called.

Gashan had been in Jotenya, that mighty stronghold of the marchlands, when its walls had fallen to the servants of Dedalugun. Now she and the other survivors rode for Nzene. She meant to mount a defence of the capital, and Esbar was resolved that they would help her.

The night before they set out, silence lay upon the Priory. Only Tunuva was awake, standing at a window. It was rare that the stars could be seen through the smog, but tonight they showed themselves.

Somewhere beneath them, Wulf was making his way back to his Inysh family. The spear had been all the protection she could grant him, and even then, it might not be enough.

She had not expected him to smile at the prospect of returning. Now the possibility was a seed, buried deep, already reaching out tiny green shoots. They would never reclaim the time they had lost, but to see him again in her silver years – that would be a gift.

‘Tuva.’

Canthe had appeared without a sound. She stood at the end of the corridor, all in blue.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ Tunuva tried to compose herself. ‘Forgive me, Canthe. I just . . . thought of Wulf.’

‘You never need to conceal that from me. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I saw my daughter again.’ Canthe joined her at the window, touching a cool hand to her arm. ‘Are you glad to have seen him?’

‘More than I can express. I never had a chance to thank you for reuniting us,’ Tunuva said. ‘If there is anything I can give you for your kindness, it is yours, sister. Only ask.’

‘I hear you are leaving for Nzene tomorrow.’

‘Yes. I think you should come with us – Siyu tells me you have done well with your archery, and it might be a good way to prove yourself to Esbar. I know she will reward your patience.’

Canthe glanced down at her own hand, turning the gold ring on her forefinger.

‘If I am to fight,’ she said, ‘I do have something I would ask of you, though I know you may be obliged to refuse.’

‘Name it.’

‘To see the Mother’s tomb.’ Canthe kept her gaze low. ‘After so long in Inys, under the yoke of the Deceiver . . . I would like to pray before her bones. It has haunted me, Tuva, to know I was chained for so long to a lie.’

It was the most sacred place in the Priory, and Canthe was not even a postulant. Tunuva knew Esbar would never allow it.

The refusal was almost to her lips when she drew it back. Canthe had done so much to help her find Armul. In exchange for that, a private visit to the tomb seemed a small request, a modest one.

Easy to grant, on the spur of the moment. Not so easy to forget. Tunuva was already carrying the secret of that foolish kiss in Inys; she could not conceal another from Esbar.

‘I’m sorry, Canthe,’ she said quietly. ‘Even the initiates cannot set foot in the chamber.’

‘I understand.’ Canthe closed her eyes. ‘But no one would have to know, Tuva. It’s just us.’

When she turned to face Tunuva, two tiny stars had risen into the sky of her pupils. Their gazes locked. Tunuva slackened, tasting steel. A heaviness came over her, and the darkness of the corridor seemed to thicken as Canthe took her by the hand.

‘Thank you, my friend,’ she said. ‘I know it will help me, to see the Mother.’

Her fingers were as cold as death. Tunuva frowned at them, trying to remember what she had just said.

Next she knew, she was in the deserted corridors, down the stairs to the burial chamber. At its doors, she reached for the key around her neck, as she did every morning.

‘Wait,’ she murmured. ‘We shouldn’t be here.’ Her voice was slow. ‘How did we get here?’

‘Tuva.’

She flinched. Now it was Esbar holding her hand, a look of concern on her face.

‘Esbar?’ Tunuva tried to blink the shadows from her eyes. ‘I thought you were Canthe. Am I dreaming?’

‘You’ve been so tired, my love.’ Esbar touched her shoulder, turning her back towards the door. ‘It’s been a hard day, but we must see the Mother, before we leave for Nzene.’

‘Yes.’

Inside, the dark was crushing. Tunuva lit a flame and sleepwalked her way around the chamber, igniting the lamps, as she always did. When she turned back, it was Canthe who stood before the coffin, both hands on its cover. Her hair gleamed like beaten gold in the glow.

‘Help me open it.’

Tunuva could hardly keep her eyes open. ‘Canthe,’ she said, ‘what is happening?’

Canthe looked up. Tunuva stared at those eyes, into some primordial absence.

‘Please, Tunuva, help me open the coffin,’ Canthe said. ‘I mean no harm.’

No harm, Tunuva thought, nodding.

She decided she must be in a dream. Her legs waded through dark water, and her skin was hot and cold by turns, her heart beating too hard. Nothing in the room held a firm edge.

The coffin had not been disturbed for centuries. Strong though Tunuva was, it wrung sweat from her, to shift the cover from its place. Canthe joined her, heaving with all her might, and slowly the cover rasped aside, revealing her: Cleolind Onjenyu, Princess of Lasia.

Not a skeleton, but a woman, entire.

The Mother, incorrupt.

Her body was whole. No decay, nor signs of age. Skin of darkest brown, smooth with youth. Hair trimmed close to her skull. Her lashes curled against her cheeks; her lips sat just apart. Tucked into the crook of her arm was a figurine of Washtu, who pulled hair from the sun to give fire to the world. Her hands were folded over one another, gilded with rings.

She did not breathe. She did not move.

‘Cleolind.’

A pale hand gripped the side of the coffin. Tunuva looked up hazily to see Canthe, her face expressionless.

‘There you are,’ Canthe said, almost tender. ‘You always were so beautiful. He would have liked you like this. The Damsel, waiting for a knight.’ She leaned close, almost close enough to kiss those lifeless lips. ‘Do you dream of him, in your own abyss?’

‘You knew her,’ Tunuva breathed. Now she knew she was dreaming. ‘You knew the Mother.’

Canthe only had eyes for the body. ‘I was sure you would have it, Cleolind. I came so close to holding its twin – the one Neporo hid away.’ She closed her eyes and breathed in. ‘But yours is here, within my grasp. I have heard its starlight whisper. Where did Siyāti hide it?’

She stepped away from the coffin, leaving Tunuva to gaze in reverence at the Mother. Decades of imagining what she had looked like, and here she was, as if in amber.

This is a strange dream.

Canthe knelt at the foot of the coffin. ‘There,’ she said, amusement in her voice. ‘I believe I know where your mysterious key fits, Tunuva. Saghul asked you to protect more than a corpse.’

Tunuva saw what she had seen. The seams in the dais, and the keyhole set into it, which a gold cover had concealed.

She slid the key into its lock. When it had turned all the way, she pulled, and with a rasp, a chest came with it, a chest that had been set into the dais. Nestled within was a white gemstone, a glow shimmering at its core. A star contained in cloudy glass.

‘Tuva?’

Canthe tensed. Esbar came into the chamber, fire in her hand. She took it all in – the open coffin, Tunuva, and Canthe – and her face went colder than Tunuva had ever seen it.

‘Canthe.’ Her voice shook with restrained anger. ‘How dare you set foot in this chamber?’

Tunuva watched the fire in her hand turn red. At once, her mind sharpened, and the shadow was blown from her eyes, leaving her disturbed and nerveless. It had not been a dream. She looked back at the pale stone. A hook of temptation caught on her, the selfsame pull that had drawn her to Canthe, and before she could doubt herself, she grasped it.

White light flared at her fingertips. She reeled away from the coffin and fell hard against the floor.

‘Tuva,’ Esbar gasped.

‘No.’ Canthe was staring at her. ‘Tunuva, what have you done?’

All was dark. The stone clung to her fingers. Her siden withered away from its chill, which bladed through her blood, locking her limbs as it went.

‘Tuva, you fool,’ Canthe said, starting towards her. ‘You have doomed yourself—’

Before she could get close, Esbar slammed her into a wall. Tunuva retched. She had fallen through ice, into water that seared like thousands of swordpoints. Her hand was clenched around the stone, her skin frozen to it, and for all she tried, she could not let go.

‘I knew you came here with some foul purpose, Canthe – if that is your name,’ Esbar bit out. ‘No more lies. What are you doing here, in the Priory?’

‘Do not fight me, Esbar,’ Canthe said, eyes watering as Esbar tightened her grip. ‘All I need is the waning jewel. I sensed it, when the Dreadmount opened.’

‘What is it doing to Tuva?’

‘It is not your—’

‘This is why you’ve been sniffing around her. Because she’s the tomb keeper. You never cared about her,’ Esbar said, hatred creasing her face. ‘You just wanted to gain her trust.’

‘Oh, you don’t know the half of it, Prioress,’ Canthe said, the cruelty as sudden as it was soft. ‘Did she tell you I know the taste of her lips?’

Tunuva tried to get up. She was weak enough to faint, her breath trapped in her throat, but she could still hear Esbar: ‘Enough of your hissing. What is that thing, and why do you want it?’

‘None of you even knew it was there. Surrender it to me, and I will go in peace, just as I came.’

‘Never. I might not have any idea what it is, but it belongs to the Mother. You think I would give anything of hers to another Inysh deceiver?’

‘Let me do this without violence,’ Canthe said, a fraught note to her voice. ‘I cannot leave the Priory without it. It is more dangerous than you could ever comprehend.’

Tunuva managed a groan as her windpipe thawed. Esbar looked towards her, face lit by her flame and her eyes deep as wells, stowed with fear.

Canthe used the distraction to twist her wrist. Esbar gave a tortured sound, a sob caught in a scream, and collapsed to the floor. She had never made a sound like that.

‘Esbar,’ Tunuva rasped.

‘Illusions, Tuva. Esbar is seeing many things. All the nightmares she’s had, and more,’ Canthe said. ‘Visions of you embracing me; of Siyu and her baby, eaten by wyrms; of her birthmother on a pyre; of her ichneumon caught in a trap, whimpering for her. Everything that Esbar fears, I can make her live.’

Dark magic rippled through the burial chamber. A power that stank of iron, laid over a sharp, sour base.

‘You gave me those dreams,’ Tunuva said, bitter remorse filling her. ‘It was you.’

‘It was necessary. Your living siden gives you some resistance to this magic, but in your sleep . . . you were easier to mould. I needed you to trust me, Tuva.’

‘So I would let you into this room.’ Tunuva pushed herself from the floor. ‘You said your sterren was spent.’

‘This is but a shadow of the power I once had.’

‘Let her go.’ Tunuva held out the stone, the waning jewel. ‘Take it, Canthe. Take whatever you want.’

Esbar arched in agony, staring at the ceiling. Canthe stepped over her. As she approached Tunuva, the stone glowed.

‘I don’t understand,’ Tunuva said, trying to slow her. Somehow she needed to protect both the stone and Esbar. ‘Who are you?’

‘Oh, I have had many names: Hertha, Jórth, the Hawthorn Mother. I was the Witch of Inysca. I was the Lady of the Woods.’

And Tunuva realised, as she looked up at this woman who had been her friend. Every piece of her shattered heart came together – not smoothly, but like broken teeth, the shards piercing.

There is a forest there, wild and dark and beautiful, that crosses the whole island, shore to shore. A place feared without cause. At last, after twenty years, she understood. They call it the haithwood, and as the story went, a witch lived there . . .

‘You.’

Canthe stopped in front of her.

‘It was you.’ It burned her throat as she said it, like a curse. ‘You are the one who took my child.’

Tunuva thought she would deny it. Until she said in a whisper:

‘Yes.’

Tunuva stared up at her. Her body was bloodless. A ghastly laugh escaped, boiling up from her vaults like a poison, some runoff of the agony she had kept chained down there for years.

She had let this woman comfort her. She had laughed with her, ridden with her – kissed her, fool that she was. She had bared her heart, because they had both survived the same pain.

The honey and the blood, the bees, the ditch, the wanting to be dead – at last, Tunuva knew the cause of it, all of it. She knew whose arms had carried Wulf to the land of the Deceiver.

‘Tell me why.’ It was all she could say, all she could think. ‘Why, why?’

‘Tuva—’

‘You should have ripped the heart from me. It would have hurt me less, Canthe.’ Vines of fire snaked around her fingers. ‘What did I ever do to deserve this?’

‘Nothing,’ Canthe said thickly. ‘Please. Give me the waning jewel. Let it be over.’

Tunuva shook her head and pressed it to her throat, where hot defiance welled. When that power benighted her mind, she firmed her eyes shut and held her flame, trying with all her might to resist.

Canthe cried out. Tunuva looked up to see an arrow buried in her shoulder. On the threshold, Hidat stood with her bow, a second arrow nocked and drawn. This one struck Canthe in the thigh. As she crumpled, Tunuva dived past her, to Esbar.

‘Ez,’ Tunuva whispered, cupping her face. ‘Esbar—’ Esbar recoiled from her touch. ‘Shh, my love. It’s me.’

Esbar blinked away tears. Tunuva helped her up, while Hidat sent a golden blaze into the chamber, brightening all the oil lamps at once. Canthe shielded her face with one arm. The fire seared her sleeve away, but the skin beneath was unburnt.

‘Get out. We outnumber you.’ Esbar wiped sweat from her upper lip. ‘Begone from here, witch.’

‘Witch,’ Canthe said, her laugh almost desperate. ‘Yes, Esbar uq-Nāra. I am always the wicked witch in the end.’

The gemstone shone on the floor. Canthe moved towards it, and time narrowed as if through the waist of a sandglass, and Tunuva reached for her siden, breaking into that forbidden reserve. An overwhelming rush of heat swallowed her body whole. She mustered it into her palm and unleashed a searing flash of wyrmfire, turning the chamber red.

Hidat flinched back. The sandglass burst. Canthe hit the coffin and crumpled like paper, the ends of her hair charred, skin raw from the heat. Before she could recover, Esbar charged to the coffin, took hold of its lid, and heaved it aside with a scream of exertion.

Tunuva clenched her burning hands. Canthe choked out a ghastly sound that flecked her lips with blood. The lid had staved her ribs in, almost breaking her in half. Eyes glazed by pain, she lifted a shaking hand off the floor, towards Tunuva, before her arm fell limp.

Silence returned to the burial chamber. Hidat broke it first. ‘Is she dead?’

Esbar knelt beside Canthe and took hold of her wrist. ‘I don’t feel a heartbeat,’ she said hoarsely, ‘but we will lock her in. I trust nothing I see around her.’

‘I was so blind,’ Tunuva whispered.

Esbar glanced up at her. ‘These nightmares that have plagued me for months. It was her,’ she said. ‘Hidat, it must have been Canthe who made you see Saghul, tricked you into killing Anyso.’

Hidat looked shaken. ‘Why?’

‘To drive a wedge between Esbar and me,’ Tunuva said. ‘She knew Siyu would run. She knew I would go after her, and Esbar would not, as Prioress.’ Esbar met her gaze. ‘All of it was to isolate me, to worm her way into my heart, so one day I would unlock this chamber for her.’ She retrieved her key from the lock. ‘Because I am the tomb keeper.’

‘How did you make wyrmfire, Tuva?’

‘I will explain.’ Esbar picked up the stone. ‘This feels wrong. It feels . . . like Canthe. But the Mother was protecting it.’ She looked at the other body. ‘How is she like this?’

Hidat followed her line of sight. Seeing the Mother, she went to one knee, gripping the coffin. Esbar walked to Tunuva and handed her the stone, which glowed.

‘We should bury her deep,’ she said. ‘Help me, Tuva.’