A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Glorian wore grey from her fur collar to her shoes. Even her necklace was hoary, made of silver and sheet pearl. She twisted the broad ring from her father as Florell dabbed rosemary oil behind her ears, making her smell of misery.

‘It feels wrong that Lady Marian isn’t here,’ Florell said.

‘Queen Sabran wouldn’t have wanted her at the entombment.’ Julain handed her a comb. ‘Would she?’

‘No, sweeting, but Queen Sabran is gone.’ Florell stoppered the oil. ‘I never wanted children of my own, but if I did, I could not bear the pain of not being allowed to show my grief.’

Even now, Glorian could hardly absorb those impossible words: Queen Sabran is gone.

Helisent set the cloak on her shoulders and pinned on the new patron brooch – the True Sword, which united the Six Virtues. Next came the mourning veil, crusted with grey pearls, and a pair of sheepskin gloves. Florell brought a silver circlet, forged for her mother to honour her as queen consort of Hróth, and used it to fix the veil in place.

‘Do you want to see?’

Glorian almost shook her head, then remembered: A queen must know how she appears to others. When she nodded, Adela brought her the mirror.

There she stood: Glorian the Third, Queen of Inys. Twentieth monarch of the House of Berethnet. Wherever you are in the world, I warn you: they are coming. She could just see her own eyes. Be careful, my sister, my mirror. Be ready.

Her mother had said it was the Saint calling. At last, he had acknowledged her again, broken his long silence – but now he offered a warning.

Destruction.

‘Come,’ Florell said. ‘It’s time.’ Glorian let herself be led from her chambers.

The sky was black, studded with tiny cloves of star. It was customary to hold entombments just before dawn, so the dead could follow the sun as it climbed to the heavenly court.

Outside, in the Royal Garden, the Virtues Council waited – not just the six Dukes Spiritual, but most of the Earls Provincial and Knights Bachelor, as well as other noble members of the court. All wore grey veils or mourning caps or wimples. Lord Robart was at the front.

‘The queen is gone,’ he said, unreadable. ‘Long live the queen.’

They all bowed. Among them stood Lord Edrick Glenn and Lord Mansell Shore – Wulf’s fathers, wearing the alder tree. Grief seemed to have unsouled them both, miring their eyes in shadow.

Glorian walked with her guards down the river stair, into the candlelit royal barge, its usual red canopy replaced with a grey one. Lord Robart sat beside her.

Ascalun was deathly quiet. As the barge slid through the deep waters of the Limber, Glorian saw scores of people on both sides, faces lit by the torches that smoked along the riverfront. Not all wore grey, but most had found appropriately dull clothing and covered their heads. They held candles in silence. The air smelled like tallow, rosemary and pitch.

Sabran had been the queen who guided them from darkness. Now they would see her home.

The Sanctuary of Queens stood on Rose Island. Here the narrow River Lyttel split before it met the Limber, carving an eyot from the ward. For centuries, this tiny isle in the city had been the resting place of queens and consorts, with its own detail of defenders – the Rose Guard – to ensure no harm came to the bones, protecting the dead’s places in Halgalant.

When the barge docked, Lord Robart offered Glorian a hand. They walked through the ancient garden of the sanctuary, where fruit trees and rosemary grew. Sleet had frozen on two apples not long before they rotted to the ground, leaving ice ghosts on the stalks.

Lord Robart wore the gold signet ring of his ancestor, the Knight of Generosity, engraved with a sheaf of wheat and flanked by emeralds. ‘The entombment must be witnessed,’ he said. ‘Three hundred people from the city will be allowed inside.’

‘Is that wise, after what happened at Drouthwick?’

‘I chose them all myself, Your Grace.’

He spoke as if that settled the matter. Glorian kept her lips still, even as her brow tightened.

They reached the tall wooden doors to the sanctuary, and a guard knocked thrice on the wicketway – a smaller entrance, built into the larger. When it opened, a young man looked out, draped in a grey herigaut with tucked sleeves, belted at the waist.

‘Your Grace. Lord Protector,’ he said. ‘Welcome. I assist the Arch Sanctarian.’

‘Good evening.’ Lord Robart eyed the windows. ‘I trust you are ready.’

‘Almost, my lord. Let me take you to the warming house.’

‘Your pardon, Lord Robart,’ Florell said, ‘but perhaps Her Grace could have a little time alone, to pray.’

Lord Robart seemed to consider. ‘Very well,’ he concluded. ‘You’ve a candle clock inside?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ the assistant said.

‘Down to the nail, then.’

He strode away, towards the other Dukes Spiritual. ‘Please, Queen Glorian,’ the young sanctarian said. ‘Come in.’

He held the wicketway open. Glorian stepped inside with him, and he closed and locked it behind them.

Candlelight unnerved the cold stillness. The dark was so thick that she could only just make out the baldachin, let alone the high ceiling. Along the edge of the room were pairs of creamy marble tombs, spaced at like distance in a great circle, each surrounded by candles, each with a rose in an urn beside it. The effigies’ feet pointed towards the boss.

‘I will return soon,’ the assistant told her. ‘The Damsel’s balm for your losses, Your Grace.’

‘Thank you.’

When his footsteps had receded, Glorian listened to her own breath. This was where her skeleton would rest. She stood in her own mausoleum.

The candle clock was set into the wall, the wax seeping towards the next nail. She walked between the tombs, starting with a recent ancestor, Jillian the Third. By all accounts she had been a sour, unhappy person, and had died by murder just a year after her coronation.

To her left was the only tyrant, the Malkin Queen. Glorian tried not to imagine those stone eyelids cracking open. She moved on, touching each cool face. Carnelian the Peaceweaver was missing her nose and part of her intricate plait, thanks to a botched attempt to loot her tomb. When Glorian reached her own namesake, she stayed for a long time.

Glorian Hartbane did not smile in death. Her hair was cut in line with her chin, and she grasped her magnificent bow.

Her companion reposed beside her. Isalarico the Benevolent, who had brought Yscalin into Virtudom. He had forsworn the old gods for her love, just as King Bardholt had for Queen Sabran.

Another effigy wore a wimple, and another, a gown that covered her to the chin. Yet every face, every queen was the same, all the way back to Sabran the First, daughter of the Damsel and the Saint. Always the same chins, the same high cheekbones, the same lips.

Queen Cleolind was not among them. She had been laid to rest in a plain tomb in the Sanctuary of the Sacred Damsel.

The next tomb waited to receive her grandmother. The one beside it already held her consort, the late Lord Alfrick Withy. Glorian laid a hand on his chest – the grandfather she could hardly remember. A few more steps, and she stood before the last two effigies, the newest.

She was still for a long time. At last, she stroked the nearest tomb, limned by candles.

‘I miss you, Papa.’

Soon he would be at the Great Table. The Saint would have saved him a place of honour – but for now, in the hour before he ascended, his spirit must be somewhere close. He must hear.

‘I will find the truth.’ Her voice strained. ‘I will give you cold justice, Papa, I swear it.’

Her mother lay beside him, hands clasped in prayer.

‘Mother, forgive me. I wish our last words had been warmer.’ She traced a marble strand of hair. ‘I miss you, too, and love you. Even if you never let me tell you so.’

A draught made the candles flicker. When she straightened, she looked at them all, the Queens of Inys. I pray you all, do not abandon me. I am Glorian the Third. Shine a light upon my reign.

In silence, she stayed with her parents’ tombs. At last, the nail slipped from the wax and clattered into a small dish.

By the time the wax had reached the next nail, the witnesses had filled in the circular aisle between the tombs and the raised boss, where the Arch Sanctarian oversaw the rites. Glorian stood between Lord Robart and Julain as they sang for the souls of the dead.

A feast upon a table, a wonder to behold,

the apple trees, the river green, the court where none grow old.

A place of true magnificence, away from war and hate,

our eyes shall see in Halgalant, beyond those joyful gates.

Forget us not in happiness, ye good departed souls,

ye feasters in the merry hall, who dance in fields of gold.

Though our hearts ache for your welcome, for now we can but wait

to meet again in Halgalant, beyond those joyful gates.

‘We gather beneath Halgalant to lay our good Queen Sabran to rest for the last time.’ The Arch Sanctarian broke a long hush. ‘Sabran Berethnet, the sixth of that name, who ruled over this queendom for close to twenty years. She was our sunlight. Our saviour.’

Weeping. Lady Abra Marchyn, one of her mother’s attendants. Florell drew her close and hushed her.

‘Queen Sabran perished at sea on the Conviction,’ the Arch Sanctarian continued. ‘That ship was a gift from her devoted companion, Bardholt Hraustr – the first of that name, King of Hróth, victor in the War of Twelve Shields, who redeemed his country, and saved it from vice, by accepting the Saint. With their love, all wounds were healed. With their union, the Chainmail of Virtudom begot its third and strongest link.’

Glorian tried to keep her back straight. A numbness overtook her body, the same as in the early days of grief.

‘They will be missed beyond reckoning,’ the Arch Sanctarian said. ‘Not only by their loyal subjects, but by their daughter, Queen Glorian, who now steps forth to guide and rule us.’

A novice approached with a wooden box. The Arch Sanctarian used a pair of pincers to draw a tooth from inside and hold it up.

‘A tooth,’ he said, ‘from the mouth of Queen Sabran. Here is her salvation, the key by which she steps into Halgalant. Let it be placed inside her tomb, and let the tomb be sealed for ever.’

He returned it to the reliquary and locked it fast. The assistant carried it to the tomb, which the six Dukes Spiritual heaved open. Lady Brangain took the box and lowered it inside. Glorian wished she could have done it, but queens were forbidden to handle remains.

‘A tooth from the mouth of King Bardholt. Here is his salvation, the key by which he steps into Halgalant.’ The Arch Sanctarian held it up. ‘Let it be placed inside his tomb, and let the tomb be sealed for ever.’

Tears washed her cheeks. As the repository was placed in the tomb, she tried to hold in a shudder.

This was not how it should have been. Her parents’ bodies should have been carried through the streets in dignity and splendour, a thousand horses and knights riding with them. All that remained, all the proof that they had ever existed, were two brittle teeth.

Once the tombs were closed, the Arch Sanctarian read the needful prayers, wreaths of rosemary and queensflower were laid, and then it was the end, the honours done, and all the living left the dead.

First light stained the horizon. Glorian drew up her hood and crossed the bridge over the Lyttel. They would return to the castle on horseback, following the Strondway – the river path – so the sun would tail them as it rose. Seeing her up close, the people crowding the streets lowered their heads.

They will not hurt me. Glorian recited it to herself. I am the unending vine.

Lord Robart waited for her to climb into her saddle. As she bestrode her grey stallion and rode after him, her sorrow welled into her throat, and then so did her voice. It burst forth, rich and clear in a way it had never been in her lessons, and she sang with all her might in Hróthi.

Mourn, he is gone, the warrior bold – hallow the bones, hallow the bones!

See him above to the highest of halls – hammer the drums, muster the horns!

Witness the glory he leaves in his wake! Carve his name into the ashes, the walls!

Her regent looked over his shoulder at her. His expression was as calm as ever, his gaze pricked with something like curiosity.

Many of the Hróthi had settled in Ascalun. They echoed the third verse, their fists raised to the sky, stamping in time with the song. Glorian called out again:

Run, he is rising, the one who is gone – look to the sun, look to the sun!

Show him the way to the Saint’s open door – bring forth the ship, lift him aboard!

Weep ye no more for the fallen exultant! Light every beacon to high Hólrhorn!

Rejoice, he is risen, the King of the North – loud did he roar, loud did he roar!

Open the gates to the heavenly court – lay out the feast, let the wine pour!

Shatter to dust all his enemies’ war horns! Sing to the eaves of his glittering fort!

A red sun edged over the horizon. Glorian felt alive and strong for the first time in days.

Then she felt something else.

Her horse snorted and huffed. Somehow she knew where to look, and so she saw it first.

It fell like a shadow over Ascalun, into the bloody light of dawn – black its hide, black its wings, dark the dread horns that speared from its skull. Smaller beasts flew with it, limber where the first was thick and unwieldy. From this distance, they could almost have been a flock of birds.

Glorian listed, at the mercy of her weak grip on the reins. Her ears clanged. If she had not known the Nameless One was red, she would have thought he was plummeting towards her.

A woman saw, and screamed, and then so did the crowd. People shoved and scattered before the wyrm – for wyrm it surely was, soaring down the Strondway, straight for Glorian. Her horse swung its head and reared, and before she knew it, she had slipped from the saddle.

This time, she took the blow on her shoulder. If anyone called to her, the roar smothered it, for now the mourners were a stampede in the thousands, fighting to escape. Glorian crawled until someone grasped her wrist and pulled her up – Helisent, shouting at her, but there was too much of a clamour to hear, terror breaking like a wave on the city.

They both fell when the wyrm landed, shunting the street underfoot. Every horse in the procession fled, strewing the Strondway with their riders. Glorian looked up, deep into the eyes of a monster.

Red fire burned in its skull, in its nostrils. Each tooth was longer than a sword, the fangs like bear spears. She could not move, not to breathe or blink; its gaze bound her to the spot, as if she were prey that was already dead. Fire it was, purposely wrought – fire as makes a blade, for slaughter. Its eyes seethed with flame, not good nor evil, the sanctarian read in her mind, but also that which makes a wyrm, that is, its cunning, and its malice.

Arrows splintered against its scales. Blades scraped at its flanks in vain. Dame Erda threw herself in front of Glorian, only to be swiped aside with force enough to break a wall.

‘queen of inys.’

The sky echoed that stentorian voice. It scraped all the strength from her bones and thundered over every roof, leaving her people cowering. Some screams cut off, while others loudened. Adela took one look at the wyrm and slumped to the ground in a faint.

Glorian felt her skirts dampen as the wyrm towered over her. She had to crane her neck to hold its gaze. Its roasting breath reminded her of standing too close to a bonfire – a heat that tightened her skin, leaving her face so dry and raw that blinking scratched her eyes. Helisent kept hold of her hand. Their fingers were locked together, their palms slick.

‘For your empty tombs,’ said the wyrm.

Glorian was trembling so hard her jaw rattled. Her mind was boiled and slippery. It took her a moment to realise the wyrm was not only speaking in a human tongue – it spoke, monstrous horror, it spoke – but in Hróthi. When something landed with a clatter in front of her, she covered her head with an unbidden cry, embraced by Helisent.

A charred pile of bones, two cracked skulls among them.

‘They suffered, little queen,’ the wyrm told her. ‘Be sure.’

Helisent made a tiny sound. Glorian stared at a thighbone, part of a rib, the nearest skull. Still she could not move – not with her nerveless hands, the absence of feeling below her chin.

‘The middle realm will be littered with bone.’ A red tongue flickered at its teeth. ‘All will be razed.’

To freeze is an instinct shared by all living things. Think of how a deer stills when it scents a threat. Glorian kept looking at the skull, into the hollows that had once held eyes. You can conquer it . . .

‘The flesh queen does not speak.’ A sound like moving rock. ‘Does silence already descend?’

With what little control she still possessed, Glorian reached for the skull and touched it with her fingertips. It was the chip in its cheekbone that proved it.

Papa.

He was with her. Knowing it gave Glorian the courage to look up and unlock her throat. ‘What grievance have you with Inys, wyrm?’ Her voice came high and brittle. ‘Who are you?’

She spoke in Inysh. Recognition sparked in its eyes.

‘Who comes after the one before,’ came its answer. ‘I breathed flame into life, and made death flesh. I am the fire beneath, unleashed.’ Its Hróthi was rumbling and harsh. ‘I am Fýredel.’

This was the beast that had murdered her parents.

The Dreadmount had birthed destruction again.

Its eye fell on Lord Robart, who had managed to keep both his seat and composure, though his face had gone white, and his eyes wide. Seeing him spurred Glorian to rise. If she was to die, she would die as her father must have, when he faced this monster.

‘I am Glorian.’ For all she tried, she could not steel her voice, but she could raise it: ‘Glorian Hraustr Berethnet, Queen of Inys and Princess of Hróth. My ancestor was Galian Berethnet, Saint over all Virtudom, he who vanquished the Nameless One.’

It bared more of its fangs.

‘That which is unnamed was first,’ it said. ‘But I am named, flesh queen. Remember.’ Its pupils thinned. ‘The cold one on the ship. She was your kin.’ Glorian looked at the other skull. ‘She fell to my flame. So will this land. We will finish the scouring, for we are the teeth that harrow and turn. The mountain is the forge and smith, and we, its iron offspring – come to avenge the first, the forebear, he who sleeps beneath.’

Every warrior should know fear, Glorian Brightcry. Without it, courage is an empty boast.

‘You confess,’ Glorian said, ‘that you slew the blood of the Saint.’ Her voice kept breaking. ‘Do you then declare war on Inys?’

Fýredel – the wyrm – let out a rattle. A score of complex scales and muscles shifted in its face.

‘When your days grow long and hot,’ he said, ‘when the sun in the North never sets, we shall come.’

On both sides of the Strondway, those who had not fled were rooted to the spot, fixated on Glorian. She realised what they must be thinking. If she died childless, the eternal vine was at its end.

What she did next could define how they saw the House of Berethnet for centuries to come.

Start forging your armour, Glorian. You will need it.

She looked down once more at her parents’ remains, the bones the wyrms had dumped here like a spoil of war. In her memory, her father laughed and drew her close. He would never laugh again. Never smile. Her mother would never tell her she loved her, or how to calm her dreams.

And where there had been fear, there was anger.

‘If you— If you dare to turn your fire on Inys,’ Glorian bit out, ‘then I will do as my ancestor did to the Nameless One.’ She forced herself to lift her chin in defiance. ‘I will drive you back with sword and spear, with bow and lance!’ Shaking, she heaved for air. ‘I am the voice, the body of Inys. My stomach is its strength – my heart, its shield – and if you think I will submit to you because I am small and young, you are wrong.’

Sweat was running down her back. She had never been so afraid in her life.

‘I am not afraid,’ she said.

At this, the wyrm unfurled its wings to their full breadth. From tip to hooked tip, they were as wide as two longships facing each other. People scrambled out of their shadow.

‘So be it, Shieldheart.’ It steeped the word in mockery. ‘Treasure your darkness, for the fire comes. Until then, a taste of our flame, to light your city through the winter. Heed my words.’

Its jaws yawned. Helisent wrapped both arms around Glorian, and Glorian held her back, eyes shut.

But Fýredel did not kill them. Instead, a wordless bellow came from its throat, loud as ten thousand war cries, and its underlings descended on the city. Fire leapt on the rooftops of Ascalun.

No . . .

Fýredel took wing. The downwind blew hundreds of people to their knees. With an anguished sob, Glorian tried to gather the bones, but then strong hands had gripped her arms, and she was hauled bodily off the Strondway. She tripped on a cobblestone, almost lost her footing, before Sir Bramel Stathworth caught her.

A skull slipped from her grasp. They kept pulling her on. ‘No,’ she cried. Sir Bramel scooped her clean into his arms without stopping, as if she were a child. ‘Let me go. Papa—’

‘Get her away. Take the Old Bridge,’ Lord Robart roared from horseback. ‘Archers, lancers – to me!’

Glorian hung like a broken puppet, head flopping. Her body had quelled the worst of the fear, but now it swept free, unhooking her joints. Horses screamed with their riders. Then a burning wind – a shattering – and black smoke, thick and searing hot, just as she breathed in.