jayestory1Q

ASHE

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Chapter Eighteen

Almost the Very End

Alexis stood at the top of the bank, cool and collected, smiling down at Ashe. Through pain and disorientation, Ashe could clearly see that new confidence as well as new health was flowing through Alexis’s veins. She forced herself to her feet, felt at her side for a sword that wasn’t there, then looked at the broad grin on Alexis’s face and wondered if it would be the last sight she’d see.

“It’s so strange.” Alexis looked comfortable, almost elegant, and entirely well. “I understood well enough that I’d die if you died, and that was making me highly circumspect, to say the least. Calypso wanted to kill you herself: you can’t really blame her for that. And I told her that she’d lose me if she did. But then it struck me – as it sort of struck you – what if you were injured by my hands? As an extension of that, what if you died at my hands? When I fired the arrow I knew it was a risk. It might have meant death for either of us… Looks like it only meant death for you You’re dying now, Ashe. Dying even as we speak. I can feel your essence flowing from you.”

“This…” Ashe gestured to her injured shoulder, “is yours, then? Your arrow? Thanks. Just what I needed to make my day complete. Next time do me a favour and aim for my heart.” The pain was making her sweat: her forehead was clammy and damp and she felt a little sick.

“Oh, Ashe, I feel so well again!” Alexis’s face was radiant with joy. “It was a massive risk, of course…” Alexis’s voice was honeyed; she could have been addressing a lover. Truth to tell, for a second or two she truly fancied Ashe. Killing her would be good of course, but fucking her came a close second. “But it all worked out for the best. The best for me, that is. And of course, now I get to kill you.”

Ashe looked almost absently at Alexis. Something inside her was slowing down, and Ashe could feel it. She put a hand to her wound, and brought it away sticky with blood. When her adrenalin should have been racing, it had slowed right down. And why not? All that needed doing had been done. The battle was over and Calliope was safe. She said, “Planning to hack me down unarmed? As you may have noticed, I have no sword.”

Alexis held her own sword in her right hand and with her left tossed a second sword toward Ashe. “It’s no fun if you cheat,” she said. “I don’t want this to be a questionable victory.”

“I think you tipped the balance with that arrow,” said Ashe. But she weighed the sword in her hand all the same. It felt alright; no better and no worse than any other weapon. The pain of the arrow wound was sending bright flashes of pain through her shoulder, and the fingers of her left hand felt dizzily numb.

It was almost impossible to care, but still Ashe tried to present some degree of opposition to Alexis’s threat. She forced herself into a defensive stance, but was becoming light-headed. The mantra ran through her tired brain, over and over: Calliope is safe. Ashe would happily have thrown down her sword and called it quits, but she could see that Alexis wouldn’t be giving her that chance. Calliope was safe. Betany was alright. And Sam would be alright, and the others had come through. Ashe smiled. Then she took the full force of Alexis’s downward strike and it nearly sent her back onto the ground. She parried the stroke and that was the best she could do. Ashe wasn’t fighting back; she was simply doing her best to address each of Alexis’s strokes. And her opponent moved easily, lightly, and happily. The joy on Alexis’s face was almost ethereal.

“This is so much fun!” There was delight in her voice. Ashe slid clumsily, swung, caught another blow that sent her staggering. Tasted blood. Saw blood. Wondered just how much longer she could last.

Images flashed through Ashe’s mind. Faces: Calliope, Betany, Cairo. Ah, gods, Cairo. That was going to hurt forever: Ashe felt a pain over her heart that had nothing to do with Alexis’s blows. Fortunately forever was almost over. Other faces flashed through her mind and faded: Arkana, Sam, and of course, Calypso. Even Teinne, whom she’d met for the first time that day. But she never once thought of Laure.

The next blow beat down Ashe’s sword. It slid along the length of her own sword until it reached her wrist. The blade was sharper than hatred, and it took off the back of Ashe’s fighting hand. Blood fountained out. The pain was so immediate and blinding that Ashe couldn’t even breathe. The sword slipped from her hand: impossible to maintain that hold… She dropped to her knees. Alexis stepped forward, quick and sure and happy, and sent her sword through Ashe’s ribcage, through Ashe’s heart.

The sensation of the blade on her bones sent Ashe’s stomach twisting. She felt pain the size of the world. For a brief and blessed moment she remembered quite clearly, waking that morning, with Calliope inside the compass of her arm and Betany on her other side. Her heart leapt desperately. The pain came down like a great clenched fist that plucked Ashe out of the world. Alexis saw the light in Ashe’s eyes extinguish like night coming down. The blade was still contained, and Alexis needed to put a booted foot against Ashe’s chest in order to tug it free. The force of the action sent Ashe’s body into the river. Dizzy with success and effort, Alexis slumped down onto the bank and watched as Ashe’s body dipped beneath the surface of the water.

The body shifted in the river. The current had pulled it over; only Ashe’s back was visible to Alexis’s hungry gaze. Late afternoon gave way to early evening: in the woods, the blackbirds were singing; woodpigeons cooed, and in the trees at the edge of the forest, the rooks dropped select twigs around their nesting site. The air was cool; it smelled of bruised grass and new growth. For a little time Alexis could not tear her gaze away from Ashe’s dead body. But at last she dropped the sword she had offered Ashe onto the riverbank, and turned away.

As Alexis moved, she grinned broadly. She felt light and health breaking through her, felt the edges of that long-ago hurt pull together, ease, and knit.

The fighting was almost over: what few Mercians had survived the battle had lost heart. A combination of being out-smarted and out-classed had swept through their ranks and then their camp. Seeing that it was safe to, Betany took precious minutes out to ensure that the injured were being cared for. Gowdie’s wounds desperately needed stitching. Sam was light-headed from loss of blood and the blow that Calypso had inflicted upon her, but she would live.

Arkana had borrowed a horse. She cut through the lines and caught up with Betany. Dismounting with a grace that Betany might have envied, had she cared, she asked, “Have you seen Ashe? I can’t find her anywhere. I know that she was going to head straight back after getting Calliope to the river. No-one else has seen her, either. Any ideas?.”

“They must have reached the river.” Betany tried to stop the desperation that had just hit her. She stared at Arkana. “Ah,… Gods. Something’s happened,” she said. “Can’t you feel it? Send your thoughts out to touch Ashe. I’ve tried it and there’s nothing there. Not a fucking breath. Not a flicker of - ”

“Wait. This could be news.” One of Betany’s soldiers was approaching, running quickly toward them. “Ashe must be alright. She can’t - ” Then she too broke off, her sentence unfinished. The soldier’s face was dirty and pale, and as she reached Betany, she could not meet her leader’s gaze.

“Ashe?” Betany said the word and thought: Gods, that’s all there it, isn’t there? It’s a name and it should summon up an image and all it does is fade away. She gathered herself up: she wasn’t the leader of Caer Arianrhod for nothing. “What has happened?”

The young soldier was in tears. “I… I didn’t see it all for myself but the others report that Ashe reached the river when the second to the Mercian leader caught her with an arrow. Ashe fought well, but she was already badly hurt.”

Betany drew a deep breath, cast aside all sense of hope or future, accepting everything bad; felt despair like an unwanted guest take up residence inside her. “Where is Ashe now?” A single beat and almost gently: “Wipe your face, soldier.”

While Arkana stared dumbly, the young soldier used her cuff to dry her tears. “Taken out by the current. No-one can find it yet.”

Betany clenched her hands until her short nails cut into her palms: it was painful but it was bearable. It was a necessary pain.. She asked, “Calliope? The little water spirit?”

“Safe. Ashe returned her to the water. It was while she was lowering her into the water that… the Mercian captain fired her arrow.” Betany nodded, shoving her hands into her pockets, forcing her expression into something like that of a leader’s. “Ashe was undefended: she had no chance. Mistress, she had no weapon even.”

Betany took a breath that made her lungs hurt and then said, steadily and almost easily, while demons ripped a route through her heart, “Is Alexis... still alive, somewhere?” The soldier nodded. “Then today’s battle is not yet over,” said Betany. “Whoever brings me Alexis’s heart and hands will be rewarded to the fullest extent of the Caer Arianrhod coffers.” She put a hand under the young soldier’s chin and lifted up the pale, shocked face to look at her. “Do you understand?” A nod. “Good. Tell the others. Now, go.” Arkana stared at her. Betany stared back. “What? You think I’m barbaric? Gods, if I had her heart here now I swear I’d eat it whole. Save your judgement on me for some other time, Arkana. For the moment, I want her heart to see if there’s any humanity in it. Her hands… Well, they’d just make a good trophy. And they could never hurt someone else.”

This voice was unrecognisable to Arkana. She had not realised how much Betany loved Ashe. She had recognised incipient madness in Betany’s tone.

But despite being shaken to the core, Arkana nodded. She took a deep breath and said, “I’ll go and look for Ashe. There are other wind spirits here. We will find Ashe for you, Betany. I promise you that.”

The sky was losing light. The trees in the distance were shaken by the growing wind. The air was getting colder by the minute. Despite the fierce grip Betany had on herself she could not keep from shivering violently. She put up a hand to her face. She said to Arkana, “ Alright. Yes. Find Ashe. But leave Alexis to me.”

Arkana threw herself back into the saddle and spun her horse around. Betany stood with her sword drawn, as if there was an immediate enemy to meet. She started back toward the field, where the dead and injured lay. Two of her many captains followed after her, unordered but necessary. The Mercian-Lammoran forces, what was left of them, littered the ground like rotten fruit. Gods, what a mess… She heard someone shout that the Mercian leader had finally retreated from the field. The day was theirs. Gods, the whole damn thing was theirs, battle, day, triumph. What a fucking waste.

Betany stood for a moment, her brain racing. Then she caught up her sword and started to run toward the river, and the remains of the Mercian camp. Running had never been so easy, and she had never moved as fast before: all normal physical restrictions had been forgotten.

Alexis had burst in upon Calypso. Troops were running past her, heading away from the tents, away from the camp, anywhere but in Calypso’s company. The words had come pouring out of her, and even as Calypso registered defeat and pain, so she registered Alexis’s complete recovery: the gods knew, the woman was virtually glowing. She took on board Alexis’s words, too: the little freak dead. It was almost enough to lose a war for… Gods, what was she thinking? Yes, almost enough to lose a war for. She said, “Take me there. I need to see this.”

Quiet and a million light years from the last of the fighting, the water lapped at the reeds, and the evening ate up the sky.

Two of the soldiers walking ahead of Betany as they searched the riverbanks suddenly stopped, turned and seemed about to frame a remark. Betany was with them in an instant. She stared down to where the soldiers had been looking, and her heart skipped a beat. As she stood, stock-still, on the northern bank of the river, Calypso and Alexis appeared on the south side.

Betany had not met Alexis, but she knew her all the same. The easy confidence between the stranger and Calypso told a clear story. Equally evident was Calypso’s buoyant mood. Her face might have been drawn and tired, and her clothes marked with mud and gore, but her eyes gleamed. Snapping an order to her soldiers, Betany slid down the river bank.

Twenty feet away from her, water lapped the cuffs and collar of Ashe’s purple shirt. The pale leather of Ashe’s tunic had been stained brown by the invasion of the water. The leather ties at cuffs and collar moved like broken reeds.

Ashe’s black hair, stroked by the water, gave a spurious impression of life. Arkana – who had just caught them up – gave a little cry, and dropped to her knees on the grass that was heavy with dew. The breaths she drew in and shook out were raking and painful.

Calypso felt as if her world had just been reshaped. Her grip on reality had been swept away, even as Ashe’s body had almost been. She beamed at Betany and the others. “Looks like fate finally caught up with the little freak.” The emphasis she placed on the last word made Betany growl. Arkana put a steadying hand on her arm but Betany shook her off. This was no time for calm.

Betany said, her tone almost even, “Calypso. You’ve lost the battle. Take your dead and go home. But leave Ashe for us. Leave Ashe that we may honour our dead.” There were tears in her eyes, but they were caused by fury, not pain. In answer, Calypso slid down the river bank and approached the corpse, which was just touching the bank. As soon as she was close enough to do so, Calypso kicked out at the dead body. The sound of the impact was punky, hollow. It turned all stomachs on Betany’s side of the river, but Calypso laughed like a child celebrating a birthday. It sounded to Arkana as if Calypso’s sanity had finally snapped.

“Leave you Ashe? Give her to you?” The mad and horrid laughter climbed in scale and tone. “Give her back to you? Gods! You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to have the little freak’s body flayed. I’ll paint Ashe’s skin with the colours of the Mercian army, and whenever I go into battle you’ll be able to see her again. Just imagine it, Betany: in the future, on every campaign I lead, you’ll see the little freak’s skin waving across the sky to mark our coming.”

Betany shuddered, but would not look away. Alexis came to the top of the bank and looked down on the dead body, her leader, and Betany. Her delight in Ashe’s death had more to do with her own recovery than the death itself. But for Calypso, seeing Ashe dead was the main feature. The newly burgeoning madness that Arkana had sensed in her ran very deep indeed. It had been bred of ambition and greed, and fuelled by various incidents along the way. Seeing Ashe with Laure had nurtured it, as had the terrible damage done to Alexis; Calypso’s damaged hands and now the failure of her forces to destroy Caer and all its people. The madness had welled up like blood in a wound, like a serpent rising from its hole. She had wanted to kill Ashe herself, and even that satisfaction had been taken from her. She didn’t just want Ashe dead, she wanted her ruined. For the second time, foam gathering around her mouth, Calypso kicked the dead body.

The sound was again as nothing. Calypso had wanted to hear Ashe scream. She’d wanted Ashe to suffer. Her face distorted, her eyes bloodshot, Calypso screamed out her hatred and for the third time, kicked out at Ashe. The blow was directed at Ashe’s head, and the force of the kick would have shattered the skull. Betany could not stop looking, while Arkana shut her eyes and the young soldiers stared at the ground.

As her leg jerked with the clumsy fury of the movement, a hand shot out of the muddied water and gripped Calypso firmly by the ankle. Calypso went down like a sack of bricks onto the ground, half in, half out of the water.

Betany stared – even Arkana had uncovered her eyes – as the water of the river surged, as Calypso splashed, and as the water flowed, twisted and flowed around the rebirth, Ashe rose to her feet. Water ran from her dark hair, from her clothes, and as Calypso wiped water from her eyes and looked up, it was to see Ashe smiling. The strange, scarred face was transformed from the blotted emptiness of death into an immediate and utterly unconscious glory. Betany felt her heart skip one beat, and then more, as the dead eyes opened and sparkled with life, irises ringed in fire. Ashe moved steadily, gracefully out of the water and made a slight bow toward the stumbling, splashing figure of her enemy.

She seized Calypso’s hand and hauled her upright. Calypso moved like a rag-doll in over-enthusiastic hands. When she was standing, Ashe pushed back the muddy sleeves of her purple shirt and grinned. She never even looked at Betany and Arkana, or their soldiers, yet all knew that she somehow acknowledged their presence, and welcomed them.

Ashe glanced up at Alexis. “Hallo, you,” she said. Her words were like ice cracking.

Alexis began to slide down the bank towards them, daunted as she was by Ashe’s expression. She came in fast behind Ashe and Betany was about to shout when Ashe spun around and said, “Thank you, Betany,” as she lashed out backwards with her elbow, striking Alexis in the throat and sending her flying. Alexis twisted and turned in the mud, choking.

Ashe was already back and facing Calypso, who was struggling up the bank onto the grass above them. Ashe let her go and then leapt the same distance, landing easily, lightly. “Calypso…” Ashe’s voice had changed. A million years away from Lascar and dismissal Ashe’s voice sounded warm and fine and proud. “Oh, Calypso. I heard your litany. What a fine choice of words. Would you truly take my skin for your sorry banner? Are you truly so corrupt?” The smile, the steady, confident movements that took her closer and closer to Calypso’s unbelieving form.

“Calypso…” Reaching out to take her enemy by the lapels of her cloak and shake her until Calypso resembled nothing so much as a scarecrow caught by a high wind.

“Calypso...” She whispered the word in three disparate syllables. She threw Calypso back, letting her stagger free, watched her finally remember herself sufficiently to reach for her sword. Watching Calypso struggle backwards, her sword being cumbersomely used as a prop. Even before she could swing a roundhouse blow at Ashe, the one-time consort and twice-former corpse held up her hand and called, simply, and in a tone of command so unutterably certain that it made Arkana grin and blink, Calypso start, and Betany – unsuitably but cheerfully – go wet between the legs, “Betany, my love? Sword, please.”

Nothing but that. And the sword was flung. Betany put distance and force into the throw. The sword described an arc through the air, and Ashe put up her left hand and caught it without even looking. Betany’s mouth went dry from desire. Ashe threw the sword into the air and caught it in her right hand and hefted it afresh. “Well, look at that,” she remarked, and Calypso rushed at her.

Their swords met in the air above them, clashed and burned. Ashe had both hands on the hilt of her sword and she moved like a happy dancer: back and forward, back and sideways, the blade to her left, a front stroke she beat down, a head-high slash that she ducked beneath, and a second stroke to the side that should have been her weaker side – should such a concept have still existed – that she slid away from.

There was a joy to her every movement that none of them could have missed. Ashe had finally discovered her rightful place on the earth. The reeds danced beneath the water, and Betany, Arkana and the soldiers stood motionless, staring.

At last Ashe stepped forward, drew another attempt by Calypso to force her into the wrong direction and beat down the stroke. Their swords met in a momentary cross. Calypso’s face was hectic, flushed, and her limbs ached. The weapon in her hand weighed like lead and she felt for all the world as though she was waving a toothpick at a cyclone. Ashe beat down Calypso’s furious, flailing strokes.

Alexis had regained her feet. She had taken time out to be rackingly sick, the blow to her throat nauseating her. Coughing and spluttering she cried out, “You’re dead, Ashe. You’re dead. I know you are. I killed you.”

“You killed a part of Ashe,” said her enemy, sending Calypso flying backwards so that she landed near Alexis’s feet. Alexis lifted up her captain.

“You killed the bit of Ashe that just keeps getting knocked about.” Blow, and follow-through, and now she was fighting them both, Alexis with her sword swinging, her pacing and footing more secure than Calypso’s clumsy movements. Betany wanted to join in, but both she and the others could see that Ashe was more than a match for the two Mercians. Ashe met the next blow and sent it back with kisses, driving Alexis back. Then Ashe took from her Calypso’s sneaking, poisonous stroke, sending it back so hard that all the nerves in Calypso’s arms screamed out loud

“What the fuck are you? You’re a mortal like us. You’re just a freak, Ashe. An oddity. A nothing.” The nothing refrained from reply, seemingly happier to just knock Alexis flying. Ashe swung back her arm and caught Calypso a heavy blow across the jaw. Calypso spat blood and bits of tooth. She looked back at Ashe, fear breaking through the madness. For the first time in all her life, Calypso felt mortal, even if Ashe did not.

“She’s not like you, for sure.” The words were coming from Ashe’s lips, but Betany thought they had their genesis elsewhere. “She’s an element, she’s a Guardian, one of the twelve who take their turn at living among you as one of you. She has her roots in the water, which is why the river spirits were drawn to her, even though they knew she was not one of them.”

“Where do you get all this fucking life from?” Alexis was screaming out the words. She was hitting out at Ashe harder and harder, and making no impression. Indeed, for every blow Alexis sent at Ashe she was finding herself beaten back still further.

“From the element, from the world, from those who love her.” Alexis charged Ashe and for a second they were breast-to-breast, before Ashe brought her sword hilt down on the back of Alexis’s neck, making her spine scream and writhe.

“The little water spirit.” As the words were said, Betany had a moment of complete clarity. Looking down into the water she saw for the last time Calliope’s human form and smile. “She helped you.”

“True.” Ashe swung, took Alexis to the right and hit Calypso so hard in the stomach with her own damp elbow that Calypso’s teeth came together with an audible crunch. Alexis flinched at the sound, and then had all the breath knocked out of her as Ashe kicked out, her booted foot striking Alexis hard just below the kneecap, so that something clicked and broke, and Alexis fell face-down onto the ground, her body a glowing ball of hurt, her fists clenching in the sticky mud.

Watching Ashe move like a dancer in a complex and demanding circuit, Betany realised that her own legs had become unsteady. Her pulse was beating hard enough to rival Calypso’s. She wondered if anyone before had ever seen such a metamorphosis like this.

“I trust that Rhea has her magic back by this time.” Ashe followed up the remark with a blow to Calypso’s forearm, and the Mercian tried to rush her. The blow shocked them both, but only Calypso lost her footing as a result of it. “I know you stole her magic, you and Alexis both. You nearly killed her, too.”

“After this I intend t-…” But whatever Calypso was going to add died a death. Ashe blinked and stared as the Guardian within her began to withdraw, its job done. The mortal part of Ashe was returning, and in doing so had left her the memories of running for the river, Calliope in her arms. And Cairo’s death.

Ashe said, “Cairo.” Ashe’s voice was no longer illuminated: she sounded like her old self again. But as to Cairo, neither Calypso nor Alexis remembered the name. Both faces were blank. Ashe thought of sitting on the roof with Cairo, talking of nothing, sharing an illegal flask of perle. Good days, now gone for ever. All that she and Cairo had shared was gone. Not all clocks could be turned back.

With simple mortality resting within her, and limiting her powers, Ashe’s mood began to dull. Her mortal side was almost absolute. Betany saw Ashe shrugging off her Guardian like someone throwing off a cloak. She would miss the Guardian, but Ashe alone she could make love to, live with. Calypso saw that burning irises were subsiding into their more usual darkness. Through clenched teeth Ashe enunciated, “You should not have killed my friend.” The sword flew up once more, and when it fell, it came to rest below Calypso’s jaw.

Betany gasped. She watched the scene, saw the expression of fear and desperation writ large on Calypso’s face. Arkana said quickly and softly, “I told Calliope, and swore her to secrecy. But now you’ve seen for yourself.”

“Ashe is one of the Twelve Guardians.” Betany thought how good her particular Guardian had tasted and felt, her skin hot and sweet beneath Betany’s lips. She wondered if there was any chance of ever touching Ashe again. Oh, Gods, how she hoped so.

“The Guardians,” said Arkana, effortlessly reading Betany’s fevered mind, “seem to possess some very useful social skills.”

Alexis could not get up. Her knee had been shattered. Calypso shoved the blade from her throat, tearing her hand horribly. Her sword strokes lacked direction; she was becoming more and more clumsy, and had it not been for the terrible hatred she felt for Ashe, she would have dropped without a word.

It could not last any longer. Ashe said, “You’re still sure that you want my skin?” and Calypso thrust the sword at her so hard and quickly that it should have cut a path across Ashe’s stomach, from one side to the other. But Ashe sidestepped the blow, swung back her arm so that she knocked Calypso’s backwards, breaking the elbow, then threw her sword up so that she might catch it by the blade and bring the handle down across Calypso’s head. Calypso dropped with a grunt into the mud and stayed there.

Arkana stared, sighed, and let the tears run down her face. One of the soldiers beside her did the same.

Rhea told Ardan that she could see the day’s mysteries for herself, thank you very much.

The walls of Lascar gave way. Laure saw them fall. Dust rose into the air like seedlings reaching toward the sun.

Ashe rested her hands on the hilt of her sword and drew in painful breaths, wholly mortal and vulnerable again. She dropped to her knees on the wet grass, exhausted, empty of anger and emotion.

Gods, but what a lot of tidying up there was to do. Ashe had thought that battles ended the process of dispute, finding out instead they complicated life still further.

The news was that nothing much stood standing within Lascar’s city walls. Oddly, no-one had been hurt in the process of deconstruction, but every Lascan slave had run away. This was useful, as Ashe and Betany had agreed to end the use of slaves in Lammor. In Mercia too, with any luck.

Calypso and Alexis were taken off to the guarded hospital tent outside the walls of Caer Arianrhod.

Beneath the surface of the river, Calliope returned to her former shape. Her knowledge of the other world was already fading. She resumed her place in the world, carrying within her – at the very least – the knowledge of Ashe’s love.

Arkana and the other air spirits went over the countryside that surrounded the battle site over and over again searching out those left alive. Betany thought of them as swallows, leaving each spring for new lands.

Ashe had said goodbye to her friend. The night after the battle, when all the dead were honoured, Ashe had requested a separate – and private – ceremony beyond the city walls, in sight of the new moon. Cairo’s body was placed on a pyre and Ashe herself touched a torch to it. She had requested solitude. Betany better than any of the others understood that it wasn’t just a friend that Ashe was bidding farewell to: it was a lifetime.

Ashe stood alone by the pyre long after the flames had burned down, unable – for the moment – to cry. When the tears had dried and the night become fully established, Ashe walked steadily through the castle to Betany’s room.

Betany had begun sorting out who which of the Mercian-Lammoran forces were fit enough to travel. She was sending a formidable deputation of her own soldiers back with them. Lammor had a lot to answer for. So did Laure. Ashe had smiled to hear that although most of the city was gone, Rhea’s tower – oddly enough – was among the only buildings undamaged by what had to have been a bizarre underground storm.

The room was empty. A comforting fire burned and on the table beside it there stood a flask and two cups. Ashe recognised one of the cups. She filled it and drank without testing the contents first. Then she descended into a coughing fit: perle. She had not expected that. Tired and a little heart-sick, Ashe filled another cup and sat down beside the fire. She felt like one recovering from a fever: so much of her had been burned away. She sensed that there was nothing more to go. Her clothes hung on her, and there were great shadows beneath her eyes. Calliope was safe, but gone. Cairo was safe, too, if you wanted to see death in that particular light. Gone, too. Ashe found it impossible that she would never see Cairo again. Gowdie was feverish and truculent: she had been banned from Sam’s room for the day, the nursing staff telling her that her company was too ebullient for the little water spirit . Give it a day or two more. She’d growled and nearly changed, until one of the nurses growled back, which caused Gowdie to simmer down.

Ashe missed Arkana. The wind spirit would return some time soon, but she had things to do, and a country to run.

Ashe put her feet up on a stool before the fire. She wanted to stay awake, but her eyelids kept closing. She forced her eyes open and then gave up the unequal struggle. Sleep… Sleep would be good. Sleep was something she had not indulged in since the ending of the war. She leant her head back and let her mind go blank.

When Betany returned to her room, she found Ashe fast asleep. She poured herself a drink, took the seat opposite Ashe, and simply watched her. She had never imagined that their various adventures might have an almost tidy end.

She wondered what Ashe would do next. Apart from dying twice, Ashe had done quite a lot in a very short time. Life had been played out at an intensely hectic pace. Now it was time to rebuild. She thought about Laure.

There must have been something in the air, for at that moment Ashe opened her eyes and said, simply, “Lascar.”

“Yes.” Betany smiled at Ashe. “Tomorrow the remaining forces will be taken back. I’ve chosen a good range of our soldiers to accompany them. Once I’ve decided who is to oversee the process, it’ll be a question of whether or not Lascar is fit to be rebuilt. She looked at Ashe. “I thought that perhaps you might want to – ”

“To be honest, Ashe, I thought that you might rather have nothing further to do with Lascar, or its leader.”

“Laure?” Ashe let the word stand for a moment in the space between them. “I don’t know. I think it would be good to see Rhea again, although…”

“I don’t know if I want to see her again. That life is gone.” She sighed, and Betany felt a rush of relief at the statement. After a moment Ashe resumed. “Cairo was the only reason I might have wanted Lascar to stand still.” She closed her eyes again and for the first time, Betany felt really worried about her.

“Me? I… I don’t know, to be honest.” The wonderful richness of returning life that she had felt on the river bank, facing Alexis and Calypso, had gone as her own much simpler mortality returned. Everyday aches and pains and the endless fucking scars that now illuminated her body were making themselves known again. She got up and walked toward the fire, and as she did so, Betany thought how insubstantial Ashe looked. Her shoulders were quite broad, but she looked too thin, and not up to the demands of everyday life. Betany wondered how Ashe felt about Calliope’s return to the river. She knew that a water spirit could only ever once leave its home element. Calliope could not come back. And what in the name of all the Gods would happen when it was time for Sam to go back? How would Gowdie cope?

“Well, why don’t you go back? You can stay hidden: no-one there need know you.”

“That last doesn’t matter. I’ve changed so much… They wouldn’t know me again.” She ran tired fingers through her hair. She said, “I miss Calliope.”

The words, touching on the subject, loosened the memory into the room. Betany was aware of a Calliope-shaped space. She had never sat down to consider who of the two of them Ashe had loved best. That was something that would stay hidden. She was never going to ask. She just hoped that Ashe wasn’t about to go into a guilt-fuelled decline. Life was too short.

“I miss her too.” Betany meant it. She walked over and stood beside Ashe. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, before the fire. “But at least she’s alright. Ashe, I’m so sorry about Cairo.” Ashe nodded, and did her best to conceal the grief that Betany already knew was building up inside her. Let loose, Ashe’s grief was liable to take the whole castle with it. Come to think of it, maybe it had been Ashe’s long-restrained grief that had taken Lascar to the ground.

With a change of pace and intention, Betany went over the table, where there were bundles of papers. “Ashe, I’ve been thinking. Will you pay a short visit to Lascar, just to get the work started, if work is the right choice? After all, you know the place better than almost anyone.”

Ardan had become essential to the working of Lascar. Now that Rhea had regained her sight and needed less help – it was all Ardan could do to stop Rhea from skipping through what remained of the city – Ardan had become useful to Laure. This had been Rhea’s plan: although she personally didn’t care what happened to the queen, she did have a vested interest in the city’s future. Laure took Ardan with her as they traversed the streets. Laure was living in the ground floor of the palace, that being all that remained of it. Sometimes the devastation all around frightened her, other times it seemed to mean nothing.

The two of them were doing a slow but constructive sweep of the outside walls when the battle party arrived. Betany’s captains had supervised the journey and those Lammorans who had survived the war. A separate contingency had been sent to Mercia. They carried far more weapons. There was a lot to do, least of all the ransoming of their former leader and her former companion.

Laure had already received messages from Betany, in which were laid out the Caer Arianrhod expectations of Lascar and Lammor in general. Ransoms were the main aspect, but there were draft agreements concerning peace treaties. The vast balance of power had shifted. Calypso’s ambitions would have far-reaching consequences. A lot of work needed doing, and Betany was willing to provide help, but only if Laure agreed to a list of pre-conditions. She was assessing the situation with Ardan when the party from Caer Arianrhod arrived at what remained of the city gates.

Laure and Ardan had already agreed that the most suitable site for the new arrivals was the bathing house. Cairo would have been amused, thought Ashe, riding into Lascar and hearing their temporary address. Then she realised that her mouth had gone dry and her heart was racing. She kept away from the centre of activity, but Laure noticed that the soldiers from Caer Arianrhod deferred to this figure, and approached her, curious.

For a moment they looked directly at one another, the queen of a fallen city and the serious, dark figure of no fixed abode. Laure looked into black eyes, Ashe into green. Then Laure apologised for staring, remarked that the day was getting on and that the newly-arrived party would surely be tired. Ashe smiled, nodded and followed the others. At the entrance to the bathing house she turned for a second to see that Laure too had halted, some little way off, and was staring back. Ashe made Laure her customary bow and turned away.

“Why didn’t she just kill us both?” Alexis had grown fond of the question. At least, she asked it often enough that she must obtain some kind of satisfaction from it, thought Betany. “That would have been so much easier.”

Betany smiled. “Yes. It would have been. Personally I wish she had; it would save me all sorts of problems. But it’s how Ashe wanted things. Don’t worry: we’ll hear soon enough about the ransom details, and then you can go home.”

“To a rather modified home,” Alexis remarked. “To a kind of reduced servitude.”

Betany grinned. “If only,” she said. “No, all the gods help us, Ashe wanted you to live. She didn’t spare you so that I could have you killed.”

“You know that I’ll never walk properly again.” This was brightly clear: equally clear the fact that Calypso would never lead Mercia into another war. Betany shrugged her shoulders and walked away.

Calypso lay in one of the narrow beds, a guard near her at all times. No-one knew exactly what was wrong with her, although Betany had an idea. Something febrile and erratic inside Calypso, something not flesh nor blood, had finally broken. Betany often thought about Calypso’s plan to have Ashe skinned, and could not feel sorry for her. Gowdie still remembered Calypso’s attack on Sam, and had been banned from the hospital in case the karg decided to go one last round with the former leader of Mercia.

They sat together in the tower, in the early evening, Rhea and Ardan. Rhea had known that Ashe was near at hand, had been expecting her all day. When Ashe finally appeared, Ardan made her excuses and left them to talk. Ashe said, “She didn’t have to go.”

“Yes, she did.” Rhea’s tone was emphatic. “She has some idea at least of what you are, and of what you are capable.”

But Rhea stopped her. “Enough of that. Ardan is shy of you. Accept it and go on. A little hero-worship never comes amiss.”

“She did not recognise you. Well, you are of course, Ashe, greatly changed. I would not have known you were I not a seer. But as far as her highness is concerned,” Rhea could not beat down the irony in her voice when she spoke of Laure, “I suspect that you are happy not to be known. Isn’t that the case?”

“Why argue the point?” Ashe smiled at the wise-woman. “Your powers seem to be as sharp as ever.”

“Sharper,” said Rhea, with great satisfaction. “Much to my surprise. I have come to see that I thought I was more powerful than I truly am. I have replaced egoism with edge. With a recognition of that seems to have come a deeper understanding of the magic that I can use and see. It was very humbling, Ashe, to lose everything that made me who I was, and what I was.”

Ashe smiled. She put her hands around the cup of mulled wine that Rhea had had ready and waiting for her upon her arrival. She inhaled the spices and said, easily, “Nothing but mulled wine in here, right?” Rhea put on an expression of outraged sensibility. Ashe said, “Sorry. I just don’t think my constitution would survive being drugged again.” The words reminded her of the last time they’d met. “Rhea, I’m sorry. Your cat – ”

“Yes. No.” Ashe scowled. “It’s not so simple.” In a few words she explained about Rhea’s cat, and about Cairo. Rhea looked very sad, and very old, by the time Ashe had finished her story.

“I am sorry,” she said, a pause between each word. She wiped her eyes. “Oh, Ashe, I liked Cairo. She was exuberant and natural and immediate. But you say that she died helping you?”

“I wouldn’t have reached the river without her,” said Ashe, honestly. “I… I’m not sure exactly what I did to deserve someone like Cairo.”

“Yes.” And for a moment they sat in silence, the image of Cairo between them, the memory of her voice echoing inside their heads. At length Ashe stood up. “Rhea, I have to go and – ”

Ashe looked awkward and unhappy. “Life, here in Lascar, in Lammor, even… Rhea, it isn’t for me. I don’t belong here any more. To be honest, I don’t know if I ever did. But I worry about you after what happened. Will you be alright here, with… Ardan?... to look after you.”

“You belong elsewhere, Ashe. And I understand. I will miss you.” She smiled at Ashe – funny, awkward Ashe whom she had never fully known and who had turned out to be so much more than the sum of her parts. The days when Ashe might have made a good apprentice were entirely dead and gone. “But I will be quite alright here. Ardan is more than a match for Laure. Will we be seeing Calypso again? I must admit, I could happily live out my life without another glimpse of that face. And as to the other…” She shuddered.

“They will neither of them be back,” said Ashe. “I can almost guarantee it. And now...” she finished her wine and stood up. She did not want to get into a debate about what she should have done with Alexis and Calypso. “Now I need to be going. Take care, Rhea. As I say, you should be perfectly safe, but all the same: watch out for anyone who even slightly resembles Alexis.”

“You should have killed them both,” said Rhea, her tone sharp. Ashe shrugged her shoulders.

“Perhaps. At any rate, I didn’t.” Rhea’s facial expression registered the utmost in disapproval. Ashe sighed but didn’t force the issue. “Alright, alright. I know you think that I was wrong.” She shoved her hands into her pockets, a small bit of Ashe left over from the old days. “Goodbye, Rhea. Good luck. Thank you for the wine.”

“I’ll come to the door with you.” They stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, at the top of the only building to have survived the great fall. Ashe caught sight of Ardan some little distance off. Ardan looked businesslike and purposeful, and happy, her arms full of the herbs and flowers Rhea had asked her to collect from the woods outside the city.. For a single moment Ashe allowed herself to be envious of Ardan’s lot in life: it seemed simple and good and contained. Ashe took the steps as quickly as she dared, and was gone. She couldn’t stay in Lascar: that time had finished. She would go back to Caer Arianrhod: help Betany to carry out the changes they had agreed for Lammor and Mercia; see Sam – while there was still time – and have one last stab at getting to like Gowdie in human form… And what else? Well, she had an open invitation to Rath Bel, wherever that might be.

Evening was coming on fast. Ashe turned away from the dusty ruins of Lascar and headed out into the night.