Vengeance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 1 Page 13

  ‘And he said – oh, Bach Chwaer, the dragon said that since the Empress had killed his son, the only way the Empress could repay the blood debt against him was if she offered her virgin daughter as a sacrifice to the dragon. Oh, Emer, the dragon is going to eat Princess Aine!’ Gwen dropped her head to my shoulder again and resumed her weeping.

  Caradoc drew a sharp breath. He and I looked at one another across Gwen’s shaking shoulders. Tonight, we had done the most extraordinary thing possible. We had killed a dragon. I had been distraught when I had thought that my action was going to lead to harm to other people. Now that I realised that I was going to harm the only person who had ever been kind to me, I felt like the bottom had dropped out of my world.

  We left Gwen to her weeping. When I removed my shoulder from under her weeping eyes, she merely turned and leaned against a column instead. I don’t even know for sure if she was aware that I’d left. We went to the throne room. It was strange to see all the rich people in morning. Women with elaborate coiffures and faces painted with spirals of soot, their beautiful dresses, all silk and lace, velvet and brocade, torn, smeared and stained with soot.

  In the centre of it all, up on the raised platform that held the throne, was a strange tableau. Aoife was sitting in her usual chair at the right-hand side of the Empress’s throne. I didn’t even know how she made it back to Rheged. Her face was pale, but she didn’t appear to be distraught. Aine was also sitting in her usual chair to the left of the Empress’s throne. Her face was also pale, shocked and set. Neither Aoife nor Aine were weeping and mourning like the courtiers were.

  Kneeling on the floor next to Aoife in a puddle of gold silk, the Empress had laid her head in Aoife’s lap, weeping broken heartedly.

  Aoife saw me standing across the room, despite the constant tide of courtiers that slunk back and forth across the room, hoping the Empress would notice how grief stricken they were at the thought of losing their princess.

  ‘And here she is!’ Aoife announced in a ringing voice that cut across the sobs and wails of the more ambitious courtiers. The Empress raised her head. First, she looked at Aoife, then at Aine, then at me. She looked back at Aoife for a moment like she was confused. I watched comprehension dawn in her face, but from her position above the Empress, Aoife couldn’t see her mother’s face and she kept speaking, lacing her words with bitterness. ‘Here we have the one who caused all the destruction we have seen tonight!’

  From a distance I saw the Empress’s lips form my name on a sigh. ‘Oh, Emer.’ She stood up and ran down the stairs towards me. I was afraid she was going to attack me. It was true, even if Aoife was only saying it because she was a mean piece of work.

  If you’d told me that only a few hours ago she’d been kneeling in the mud, the ground soaked with water spilled by bucket chains, healing wounded foreign children at the risk of her own life I would never have believed you. It was like she wasn’t even the same person ‒ and I was sure that it was Aoife and not Aine who was there in the Halls of the Young with us tonight. When you’re a twin you’re alive to the small differences between sisters and I could tell the two of them apart the moment I met them.

  I took a step back and didn’t realise that Caradoc was standing behind me. I bumped into him and his hands came up momentarily to steady me. He’d meant to just keep me on my feet, but he steadied me in every way and I gained some of the courage I’d shown in facing down the dragon. I’d killed a dragon; I could face an angry woman. He only touched me for a moment, dropping his hands as soon as they touched my arms, but I took strength from his presence and his support in ways I wasn’t sure he would understand.

  The Empress positively ran across the throne room. Startled courtiers stopped mourning to get out of the way before she mowed them down. ‘Emer!’ she cried.

  Reflexively, I put my hands up.

  The Empress put her hands up too, but it wasn’t the same. She was opening her arms for an embrace. The next thing I knew, she had thrown her arms around me and was crying into my shoulder, into the spot that was still damp from when Gwen had used me as a handkerchief.

  ‘Emer, I was so worried that something might have happened to you!’ she cried. She held me so tightly that I felt obliged to return the embrace. I patted her awkwardly on the back. ‘Oh, Emer, I thought my heart would break when they said you were killed. It was too much. I thought my heart would break.’

  She held me tightly. We were the same height. I hadn’t realised that before. Always before, she’d descended on me from above and I’d been left with the impression of her being much taller than me. Now that her chin was tucked into my neck and her arms were around my shoulders, I was surprised that she seemed so small. I suppose we always think of adults as being taller.

  Over the Empress’s shoulder, I saw Aoife slowly rise to her feet. Disbelief was written all over her face. She turned her head to look at Aine, who kept her eyes downcast and refused to engage. She looked around the room at the courtiers who were all watching us, amazement shining through the sooty spirals on their faces. They started to whisper, very quietly, but when a whisper is repeated a dozen times, a hundred times, a thousand times, it rings from the rafters.

  ‘The Bach Chwaer lives,’ they said to one another. ‘The Bach Chwaer is a survivor.’ ‘The Bach Chwaer will save us!’

  The whispers got louder and louder and the Empress didn’t even seem to notice. She drew away from me and wiped her tears away. She clasped my face between her hands and started to wipe the muck from it that I’d acquired when the Halls of the Young were burning down. Her fingers were gentle on my cheeks, and for a moment I wished that she really was my mother.

  Maybe she was just a very maternal person. Maybe she had loved her friend very much, so much that it was a joy to spend her life being a mother to her friend’s children. I would have done it for Elisabeth, if Elisabeth had a child and couldn’t care for it. If, and the thought shivered across my mind, something were to happen to my Sparrow, I would move heaven and earth to make sure that her child had a better life than we’d had. I would see it as a mission, as a quest, as something heroic that would take all my moments large and small to make a wonderful world for the child that was the last remainder of Elisabeth in the world.

  Impulsively, I hugged her back. I’d never hugged anyone impulsively, except Elisabeth and Caradoc, but I saw that it moved the Empress almost beyond bearing and tears welled up in her eyes again.

  Suddenly, Aoife shouted, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Every one of you, shut up! The next one of you who whispers, I swear I will make the short remainder of your lives miserable.’

  That’s one way of getting the attention of the crowd. Actually, it’s pretty effective. Every head in the room swivelled to watch Aoife as she stomped down the stairs from the stage.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ she kept shouting. She strode across the throne room until she reached me and the Empress. Laying a hand on the Empress’s shoulder and grabbing my shoulder with her other hand, making sure she dug her claws in deep, she reefed us apart. I had no idea she was so strong. She threw us several paces apart. That had to be from magic. Clearly, unlike the rest of the magi involved in fighting the dragon, she hadn’t given her all.

  Caradoc hurried to steady me again, but I can actually manage to stand up on my own, so I stepped away from him as I gained my feet after Aoife threw me away from the Empress. I knew that the Empress hated Caradoc with a passion, and if she saw him touching me too solicitously, she would be suspicious. She would be more than suspicious. She would take steps to ensure that such a monstrosity never happened again.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Aoife screamed and it wasn’t completely clear if she was talking to me or the Empress. ‘Stop it!’ And I’d thought she was talking to the courtiers who had been whispering about me being the Empress’s heir. She took a few paces towards me and shoved me again. ‘You! You’re ruining everything! Why can’t you just go away? We were happy before you were here; we will be happy when y
ou leave and stop upsetting everything!’

  ‘Aoife!’ the Empress cried but not even the Empress was going to get through Aoife’s rage tonight. She was incandescent with it. Actually, she was sort of incandescent, full stop. I blinked to clear my eyes in case they were blurry from the stress of, well, everything and let’s face it, I’d been under a lot of stress tonight. I blinked again. I was right, I was sure I was. There was a kind of glow about her. There were a hundred thousand candles in the room, so it was brightly lit, but Aoife almost seemed to radiate light.

  Aoife stopped shoving me, but she pointed at me, her finger only a few inches from my nose. ‘She’s the reason everything went so wrong tonight! She is the reason the dragon came to Rheged! Without her misdeeds, the dragon would not have come to the city to wreak devastation and to demand compensation for blood!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Aoife,’ the Empress scoffed. ‘How could Emer influence Darragh to that extent? Her magic is strong, but it isn’t strong enough to kill a dragon.’

  ‘She killed the dragon tonight, I tell you,’ Aoife cried. ‘She used the magic of a dozen Camiri brutes and shot the dragon out of the sky. When the dragon was wounded, she rode in, oh, yes, she was so brave, riding in to slay the dragon with a spear when the dragon was already badly injured and unable to fight back.’

  The Empress turned a shocked face to me. ‘Emer, is this true?’ she asked. ‘Did you truly kill a dragon tonight?’

  I bit my lip and looked down. I knew all of a sudden why Aine did it all the time. I couldn’t bear to see disappointment in the Empress’s eyes. ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea it would end this way ‒ how could I? I thought I was saving everyone-’

  And then Caradoc was touching me again. He laid a hand heavily on my shoulder. I wriggled out from under his touch and when I dared to glance up, I saw approval in the Empress’s gaze as she saw me evade him. I wanted to sigh, but I didn’t dare.

  ‘Tonight, Emer showed the Thousand Counties what it means to be a hero!’ Caradoc cried. I looked up then, all right. I’d been so busy beating myself up that it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would call me a hero. Caradoc was a mess, the same as I was. He was covered in soot and ashes and bits of his clothes were burned and torn. His hair was wild around his shoulders and he hadn’t shaved for far too long. His head was flung back, and he was every bit the proud Camiri warrior who had stood here in this throne room to receive the capitulation of the Empress and to accept the hand of her eldest daughter in marriage. Pride, determination, strength ‒ he was magnificent.

  I would have swooned, except the Empress would have caught me.

  ‘If Emer had not been so brave, if Emer had not been so powerful, there would be two dragons in the sky above Rheged! Imagine twice the devastation you have seen tonight and get down on your knees to thank the Bach Chwaer for the work she did tonight. She faced a dragon without fear! She ran into a village that was alight, the victim of a dragon’s flame. She didn’t fear the fire. She didn’t think of her own safety. She saw to the needs of others. She rescued more than a hundred children tonight, led them away from the flames and confronted an evil man gladly so that she could offer those children freedom.

  ‘Look at her hand! Ask yourself, “Where is the ring of the Bach Chwaer?” Tonight, the ring of the Bach Chwaer is on the finger of a child. That child is not anybody special, not the son of a rich man or the son of an important woman. He is just a boy, but the Bach Chwaer saw the worth of this child and risked her life for him and a hundred others. Because the Bach Chwaer cares about her people! She would risk her life for them.

  ‘Yes, Emer used the power of magi children among the Camiri in the Halls of the Young. She added her power to theirs and the result was incredible! She knocked the dragon out of the sky! You’ve never seen anything like it! A dragon howling in pain and fear! He fell to the ground, crushing buildings and leaving a crater in the solid earth of the street!’ The crowd were with him now and I realised that Caradoc wasn’t trying to persuade them anymore. He was telling them a story.

  ‘Everyone else, even those who claim to have been present for the whole thing, had fled. There was no one there, except the princess and the dragon and I was there to witness it. I saw the Bach Chwaer when she was at her lowest point, when she had exhausted her great magic, when there was no weapon to her hand. I saw her when she made a stand for every soul in the Thousand Counties.’

  There was something special in Caradoc’s voice. No one spoke. No one even looked away and I wondered if there was such a thing as storytelling magic. Even Aoife and the Empress were hanging on his every word.

  ‘She could have fled. Who amongst you would not have fled? No one was there to witness it. No one would have thought any less of her for fleeing, when running to safety is the only sensible thing to do. But, no, the princess is not a coward who flees. She will face any evil, conquer any fear, if it means she can save her people. She caught up a spear from the ground, snatching it from the hand of a fallen child who had been too weak to defend himself against a dragon. The Bach Chwaer flung herself up onto a horse and galloped towards the dragon!

  ‘The horse’s hooves thundered in the silence of that night and I heard the Bach Chwaer utter what she must have thought to be her last words. She said, ‘For the Thousand Counties!’

  Even I was moved, and I’d been there. Caradoc was on a roll by now and the whole room was breathless with anticipation to see if I survived or not. ‘She galloped towards the dragon. He raised his head. He saw her coming. He drew in a breath, ready to flame. He opened his mouth to swallow her whole but before he could breathe out a fountain of flame, her spear pierced his heart. The dragon was dead. The Bach Chwaer was victorious. But even in her victory she was concerned about her people. She hastened to return to Rheged to offer aid to her people. And here we are, returned to you tonight, in your hour of great need, come to you like Umbra, to offer solace to her beloved people.’

  The whole crowd cheered, making such an excess of joy that it seemed almost bizarre with their faces patterned with mourning and their clothes stained with the public signs of grief. They almost seemed to have forgotten Aoife, and she was even angrier now than she had been when her mother had hugged me.

  I saw the glow around Aoife and a terrible, terrible thought crossed my mind. I’d seen her bending over those children. I’d seen her with that golden glow under her hands. But most of those children had never got up again. I’d thought at the time that it was heroically pathetic, wasting her magic on the dying. But what if she was merely… taking advantage of the situation? There were magi among them. What if she had been taking away their power?

  She waited until the crowd stopped cheering and stamping their feet. She took a few steps forward and hung a very unwelcome embrace around my neck. My skin crawled, all the way from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I patted her quickly on the back, which was a universal sign to let go. She tightened her embrace until I had to physically push her away.

  There was a smile in her eyes, but there was no smile on her face. ‘Emer. My dear sister. We will miss you so much.’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ asked the Empress.

  ‘Emer has so bravely saved us from one dragon tonight, it almost seems too much to ask more of her. She has been so terribly brave. But it isn’t I who asks the sacrifice of our brave saviour, the Bach Chwaer. It is Darragh who demands it. Remember, Mother? He wanted to eat your heir? Well, here she is.’

  The Empress’s head reared back like she’d been slapped again. ‘That wasn’t what he said!’ she cried. ‘He didn’t specify that he wanted us to give him Emer!’

  ‘He said you had to give your daughter in exchange for his son. And, as we have heard so eloquently tonight, it was the Bach Chwaer who killed Darragh’s son. It’s an almost poetic exchange.’ She laid a hand against her breast. ‘Emer, we will all miss you so much. It’s been sure something to get to know you.’<
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  ‘No,’ the Empress whispered and I wondered if Aoife had overplayed her hand. Had she forgotten so soon that when Darragh announced he wanted to eat one of her daughters it had been me the Empress was mourning? Clearly that thought had never crossed Aoife’s mind and now she was just delighted at the thought of me being eaten.

  ‘No,’ the Empress said louder. ‘That cannot be.’ She looked from Aoife to me and back again and something terrible flashed into her eyes. ‘Darragh’s demand was quite specific. He demanded that we sacrifice the virgin daughter of the Empress. Emer, despite being my Bach Chwaer and not my daughter, would not be a fit sacrifice to offer the dragon. While we all know that Emer would gladly sacrifice herself for her people, her death would be meaningless and the dragon would not stop his attacks.’

  ‘Well, he can’t have me,’ Aoife announced, taking a step back. He said he wanted the virgin daughter of the Empress. I will take an oath here and now to swear that I am not a virgin.’

  ‘I’m sure Darragh won’t mind if you’re a bit salty,’ I quipped.

  ‘I refuse to take part in this!’ Aoife cried. ‘This is ridiculous. Everyone knows that a dragon will not accept a sacrifice of a female who is not a virgin because of the risks that she might be pregnant. To consume the pure soul of an unborn infant would destroy the magic of the dragon and leave him no more than a large, dumb, destructive beast.’

  ‘It’s understandable,’ Caradoc said gently. ‘Of course you’re frightened. But, your Highness, my own betrothed, it might be the only way to save your kingdom. Wouldn’t you make this sacrifice for your people, as Emer risked her life for her people tonight?’