Orla faltered. She knew what it was to be overcome by desire for vengeance, to feel that no cost was too great to pay. She had been willing to burn the kingdom for a smaller cause than Ged’s. And then, she sensed Zavier watching her. Something was different in his expression.

  ‘There is something you’re not telling us, Orla. Some guilt you carry…’

  She gaped. Did Zavier Read? She’d had no sense of it.

  He continued: ‘You express outrage that I should lie. My lies are conscious, purposeful, intended for the greater good. What about yours?’

  ‘Orla?’ Ged looked at her and for a moment she recognised him. The Ged she knew. It was as though, in that moment they were open to one another – he was lost, scared, trying to play a role he had not chosen, trying to do it correctly, and feeling the terrible weight of the choices that lay on his shoulders. He did not mean to hurt her. He never meant to hurt her.

  And Zavier was right. In not telling Ged the truth, she had lied to him. And her lie was far greater and more dreadful than Zavier’s.

  ‘Orla?’ Ged asked again, and she felt the tears fill her eyes.

  ‘It was my doing,’ she said in a low voice. ‘The Uruhenshi who was killed at the negotiation with your father. It was my doing. I poisoned him. I was trying to kill Piroxi.’

  Ged took a harsh breath, almost a sob.

  ‘It was because of me that the Uruhenshi took the Palace and executed your father.’ She lowered her head, shame welling up, filling her. She saw now, as she had not been able to see before, how blinded she had been by anger and hate. She saw how much her vengeance had cost. It had taken Ged’s home, his father, the peace that he so loved. It had almost taken his life. She felt the cost like a searing pain, shocking in its ferocity.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  There was a long silence. She kept her gaze on the ground. She sensed the knotting of pain and shock and anger within Ged. Finally, she sensed him master himself.

  ‘You understand then, why we must act. Help me, Orla. Please.’

  He reached and took her hand and she saw his mind, saw everything: his terror, his anger, his sorrow, his determination. The love that even her lie could not break. She looked up and met his gaze and shivered. What was he becoming? Some strange transformation was occurring, and she had not even seen it. He was taking on the burden of Kingship, the hard making of decisions, choices that no other would wish to make. He was bound with a binding stronger than magic or blood or chains. He had given himself over to duty.

  She felt a desperate sadness. She did not want this grave, hard man who stood before her. She wanted her friend back.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she whispered. Even as she said the words, something within her broke.

  Chapter thirty-five

  Two days passed with no sign of the killer. Orla tried to stay close to Tarla, but not too close. Her greatest fear was that she would be out of reach, would not know when it was done, and would be too late to help the girl. For her own safety, she worried little. She saw the guards that Zavier had assigned shadowing her by day and sensed their presence by night.

  In those two days she came to know her room-mate: the way Tarla hummed in the morning as she brushed out the long fall of her dark hair. The way she frowned and stuck her tongue from one corner of her mouth when she was concentrating on a difficult task. The way before she went to sleep she would cast seemings to light the darkness, pretty vibrant things that made Orla smile to see them – butterflies and flowers and small creatures playing, and twirling tangling patterns of colour and light. They would blur and fade as Tarla drifted into dreams.

  She seemed so young. Orla caught herself watching her at times, as though she had to study Tarla’s every expression, every mood, every habit. And she should, too, she reminded herself, because the thing that had allowed her to draw Ged back from death was their closeness. It was only because she had known him, truly known him, that she’d been able to return him to himself and release him from the embrace of the Goddess. With Tarla, she had so little time.

  On the second night, she lay in the dark and watched a pair of tiny birds circling one another, leaving shimmering trails in vibrant shades of blue and green and purple above where Tarla lay in bed. They suddenly dropped into darkness. For a moment Orla thought the other girl had gone quickly to sleep. Then Tarla spoke: ‘Do you think it’s true, what Zavier said? That we’re safe now?’

  Orla hesitated, the weight of the lie pressing down on her painfully. ‘I think he wishes it to be true.’

  ‘I just… I’m tired of worrying. I feel like my whole life has been filled with worry. I’m tired of hiding and tired of running. When do I get to just live?’

  Orla bit her lip so hard she tasted the salt of blood. The blood brought an image to her mind, so vivid that it made her tremble, of Tarla with a gaping wound at the base of her throat, her hands clutching at it, her eyes wide with terror.

  Orla gasped and rolled over, turned away from where Tarla lay.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t talk like that. I know that you’ve been through far worse than I have. I mean, you’ve been held prisoner, you lost your sister…’

  ‘We all wish for peace,’ Orla said finally, forcing the words, tears burning in her eyes. ‘But I fear that we won’t live to see it. I’m sorry Tarla, I cannot sleep. I will walk for a while to settle my mind.’ And she sat up and pulled a cloak around her against the chill of the tunnels and left the chamber. She reached with her mind, wanting to make sure she was unobserved, delicately so that the sensing would not be obvious. The guards were nearby but distracted for the moment with a servant girl who was delivering them steaming bowls of food. Good. If they didn’t know she had left they would watch the room, and Tarla would be safe a little while. She did not hold fear for herself. Her powers were growing stronger the longer she studied under the tutelage of the High Ardent, and she was in possession of the Darkstone. She touched it for a moment, as if for reassurance, then turned down the passageway that led to the library, and past that to Ged’s chambers. Why her feet took her that way, she was not sure. She didn’t want to talk to Ged. Not now. She felt a shiver move through her as she thought of what he had set in motion.

  Darkfall.

  If Ged was right, it might be closer than anyone would guess.

  She’d been so focused on what his plan would mean for Tarla and herself, she had not thought beyond that. If whoever was doing this thing had sufficient skill, then the Seven Isles would soon be facing a time of myth and horror, something she never imagined she would live to see. From the little she had studied, and what she had been told by Ged, she understood that it would bring chaos. As power poured back into the world, much that seemed stable and dependable would be carried away, along with, it was hoped, the Uruhenshi who would be ignorant and unprepared.

  But what would it be like? She closed her eyes for a moment and saw the image that had haunted her in her dreams; the dream she had shared with her enemy, Piroxi. A horrifying rain of flame, a burning, nightmare figure towering, powerful and merciless. She felt herself break out in a sweat.

  She remembered what Ged had told her as they’d talked the night before in a secluded corner of the library. It would begin with tremors, such as presage the coming of an earthquake, and then the sky would darken, and darkness would flow down from the sky to the earth, and fill the minds of all who saw it, and for a time forgetting would come on them, and terror, and then the creatures of the Darkfall would wake and walk the land. Terrible creatures of power: dragons would take to the sky, Mer would reclaim their realms of the sea, and stranger things too, beings that were incorporeal but hungry for material existence. They would construct themselves of what they could find – timber, metal, cloth torn from villages and homes – to build bodies that would serve their wills. Giants, too, would wake from the roots of the mountains and stand, shaking off dirt and rock, causing landslides that would crush villages.

  And those humans born to mage-craft would find themselves filled with a power they had never imagined. They would be the only ones able to walk amongst the creatures of the Darkfall, and speak to them and maybe, in time, tame them.

  Ged had shown her illustrations of cities assailed and burning, of crops flattened and dead, of wells dried up and women and children skeletal with hunger, wide-eyed with terror.

  Orla walked on, her breathing shallow, her whole body tingling now.

  Why did it have to be so? she had asked him. Why do we have to endure such times?

  It is the price for what follows, he had told her. For only at first is the magic destructive and terrible. With time and with work it is harnessed to serve the people of the Seven Isles, making them the envy of all other lands. Those who can, wield it to help the others to rebuild, and more than just rebuild. Their lands are remade: richer, stronger, more beautiful than before. A wonder constructed on the bones of their dead.

  Orla shivered. The thing that they had not spoken of, the question that haunted her, was what this might mean for her. If the Darkfall was to be as terrible as Ged predicted, many would die, and as they died, Orla would gain power. She wasn’t sure what she was more frightened of: that the power would be too great and she would not survive it; or that she would.

  Orla stopped. There was a brooding sensation in the air. She felt a creeping, shivering feeling on the skin on the back of her neck. She had walked too far, too late at night. She should get back to Tarla and make sure the girl was safe. She turned and was startled to find that the old woman who worked in the kitchen, Kynan’s friend, making her way, slowly and unsteadily, down the corridor. She seemed to be staggering a little.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Orla called. It was very late for her to be out, walking on her own. And then, the woman looked up, the brightness of her blue eyes catching Orla’s like a spark lighting the dimness of the night.

  ‘You are Kynan’s ward, are you not?’ The old woman smiled at her, a warm and kindly look.

  ‘I am,’ Orla said. The woman took a few more unsteady steps towards her. It was not until they were almost face to face that Orla felt a chill of fear run through her.

  ‘He asked me to bring you a message.’

  Suddenly, Orla felt the strangest sensation. It was a kind of deadening constriction. She could not move, could not speak, could do nothing but watch as the woman came closer, closer.

  And then she saw then knife.

  Even as the realisation came upon her, the woman reached her, and touched a gentle, withered hand to her forehead. The constriction tightened. She could not breathe. Wild panic filled her but there was nothing she could do. Nothing.

  ‘Ah child, you are my blessing, come to me unlooked for at the time of my need. You will make a fine sacrifice. Indeed, the Goddess will be pleased with my efforts.’

  Orla wanted to cry out – she could not move a muscle, could do nothing but stand, frozen, fixed in place as the woman raised a blade with wavering hand.

  Suddenly there was a roaring sound and a great racing wave of light filled the tunnel. The woman startled and for a moment Orla felt the constriction release. She took a harrowed breath. But before she had a chance to pull away, the woman lunged, moving faster than Orla would have thought possible, the knife glinting as light fountained all around them. Orla felt a bright pain in her chest. The pain and the brilliant mass of light seemed to tangle and merge, so she was filled with them. She heard voices crying out and a warm, sudden flood washing over her, and then, as she fell into the darkness, she saw the old woman above her, arms raised, chanting an invocation, and then there was nothing.

  Chapter thirty-six

  Ged woke gripped by terror. He could hear the heavy breathing of those he shared his room with. As usual, the darkness was absolute. He had no sense of what time it was. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  The next death would be soon. It must be. If his calculations were correct, the final sacrifice must be made before the moon grew dark. There was only a day remaining.

  He’d trusted Zavier’s promise that Orla would be protected, but now in the deep of night it did not seem enough. He rose quickly, pulling on a warm cloak and making his way out into the silent tunnels. He found himself continually disorientated in the Caverns. He had memorised the turns to Orla’s chamber – right, right, straight, left, slope up, right, slope up, right. He began walking now, the sense of unease growing within him. Then he felt it. For a moment he stopped dead. It had been so faint. Was it real or was it his imagination, overactive because he’d barely woken and hardly slept? He couldn’t be sure. He waited a moment, holding his breath, listening attentively. Then it came again. A rumble so low it was almost outside the range of his hearing. A sensation of trembling as though the earth he stood on was being shaken very gently under his feet.

  It was beginning.

  It was beginning!

  For a moment he could do nothing but stand, overcome by wonder that after so many years of painstaking, silent, tedious study, the thing he had dedicated his life to was upon him. And then, he thought of Orla. He began to run. He hurled himself around corners and raced up slopes. The tremors continued, throwing him off balance, so he stumbled and almost fell. He could hear voices as others woke, and in the corridor around him torches were being lit. A bell began to sound.

  And then, as he turned another corner, he heard it: an anguished scream, a cry, and a strange sound like the wind howling though maybe it was not a sound, but something in his mind. And suddenly all he could see was a blaze of light of many colours. He staggered and held his hands up: the brightness was almost blinding.

  And then, as the light began to fade and his vision returned, he saw her. Orla was lying on the ground. Her dark hair arrayed around her. Blood pooled beside her.

  He opened his mouth but no words came.

  And then he saw Tarla running, bare foot and in her nightgown, tears streaming down her face, and crouching over Orla and shaking her.

  ‘I tried to stop her, I tried, but I was too late,’ she sobbed.

  Ged staggered, leaning against the wall to stop his legs giving way beneath him.

  Oh Gods. What had he done?

  ✤

  Everything happened as though in a dream. Guards came and took Orla’s body to a small chamber close to Zavier’s, and women hurried in and out with herbs and bandages and lamps. The assailant was caught. An old, withered being, who none had even known had any power. She stood upright, though shrunken, as Zavier questioned her. Kynan cursed her loudly and sobbed and left the room. Ged followed him out. He did not need to watch. His place was beside Orla, his dearest friend, the one who had saved him time and time again.

  Orla’s hand felt cold clasped within his own. She was breathing, but each breath was a tiny thing, so he could only feel it if he closed his eyes and concentrated on nothing else. A tendril of life was all that connected her now to this world.

  Outside he could hear yelling and running feet as the tremors continued. The world seemed upended, a place of nightmares.

  Orla he tried to send his thought to her. He held her hand. He prayed to every deity of the Seven and beyond, to the forgotten Gods of the Northlands, the ancient spirits of mountain and tree and spring, the breath of the stars themselves. He begged them to return her to him.

  But nothing could reach her. He bowed his head as women hurried in and out, speaking in low, anxious voices. He knew the truth. No art they knew would bring her back. She was already beyond their grasp. And Ged was here, stranded on the wrong side of death. He could not find her.

  He wished that Roland was here. Of anyone, he might know what to do.

  For a time, he cried, tears spilling onto her robe where he laid his head, his whole body shuddering and shaking. Then he stopped and felt clearer. He watched as the dressing was changed on her wound. It was just below her shoulder, over her breast. The bleeding had slowed but had not yet stopped. And they were worried that there might be something more at work than just blood-loss; there might be damage to her heart or to her lung.

  Tarla came in and sat beside him, whispering blessings in her gently-accented Ekenshi way, and casting tiny lights that danced upon Orla’s skin. And then, a memory came to him. It seemed so long ago that it might have happened to someone else, someone in a story he once read. The darkness of the forest. Orla lying pale, unmoving on the ground. And then, she had stirred.

  The bloodied body of the deer. Its death had been the spark that had returned her.

  Ged stood. ‘Watch over her,’ he said to Tarla, and the girl nodded silently as she stroked Orla’s hair. Ged left the room, ignored the questioning gaze of the guard who stood now, too late, uselessly, on the door. He made his way back to where the old woman was being questioned. Zavier looked up as Ged re-entered the room. The High Ardent looked exhausted and uncertain. Ged stood taller, felt something of the steel of his father’s will entering him. He would need it for what he was about to do.

  ‘Prince Gederen,’ Zavier said, and gave a small bow.

  ‘What does she say for herself?’

  Zavier sighed. ‘She says she is a servant of the Goddess Ishkara. She was bound to her service as a young child, as was her mother, and her mother’s mother before her. She says she has awaited this day for many years and performed the rite of offering to the Goddess to beseech her for blessings and kindness. She says she wants no power for her own, but all for the glory of Ishkara.’

  ‘And as Head Ardent of Dor Fareyn, what say you to this?’ Ged asked, keeping his face as clear of expression as he was able.

  Zavier shook his head. ‘I have heard of the Priestesses of Ishkara but thought their practises died out generations ago. She may be the last remaining. I think she has performed what she believed was her duty. She is an old woman. She poses no further danger.’

  ‘She is a murderer. She has powers greater than most who dwell within the caverns and she kept them concealed for decades.’

 

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