Page 103 of Her Cruel Redemption

I traced the ink with my eyes, watching how the letters blended into the parchment where damp fingers had pressed too hard. A clerk stood at my side, reading in a low monotone, pausing only when something or someone of note was identified. The rest were just names, or descriptions when there was not even that. Lives reduced to ink and paper.

Across the table, Mae sat rigid, shoulders drawn tight, her gaze dragging over lines of text. Her spiral curls hung limply around her face, uncared for, and her violet eyes were bloodshot.

‘Nothing?’ I asked softly.

She didn’t answer. She only swallowed, gripped the edge of the parchment, and turned to the next page. I could only imagine the tension she sat with, the anticipatory grief, waiting to find a specific description among the unidentified. Mae hadn’t spoken much of her part in the fall of Port Howl, but her silence said enough. She had met with Orym, the woman she loved, under false pretences. Orym had trusted her enough to come to the postern door after dark, to open it and let her through. I didn’t know what had happened once she was inside, but Mae had found the mechanism for the portcullis on the main gate and lifted it, clearing the way for our forces. In the chaos that had followed, Orym had disappeared. We didn’t know whether she had been cut down in the fighting, trampled in the crush of bodies, or if she’d managed to make it to the burning harbour and onto a ship before the final push. There were no concrete answers. There was only the list.

I exhaled slowly. This was what victory looked like. Not the banners raised over the city. Not the cheers when the gates had fallen. But loss, measured in ink.

I hadn’t understood, before. Not truly. It had been so easy to speak of righteousness when I was still in exile, when my dreams of reclaiming the throne were sharp and untarnished. But war didn’t treat dreams with any care. War hollowed them out, stripped them down to something cold and unyielding until I began to feel shackled to my purpose instead of inspired by it. What had been won, and at what cost? When I finally resurrected Brimordia, would I spend my reign counting the dead? Could I justify that when I knew those we fought had been driven into this conflict only to liberate themselves from generations of subjugation?

But if I didn’t persist, every name on these lists would be for nothing.

My voice was steady as I asked, ‘How many remain unidentified?’

‘A few hundred, Your Highness,’ the clerk replied. ‘Mostly enemy forces, though we’ll continue to record their descriptions faithfully as you’ve requested.’

‘Make sure you account for every single enemy soldier we’ve buried,’ I said firmly. ‘They deserve the right to be known as much as our own dead do.’ Beside me, Elias touched a hand to my back, lending me strength, reading the sorrow I was trying not to show, and on his other side Tanathil was steadily recording any of the dead he suspected were Yoxvese. He’d volunteered for this task, grimly determined to take his list back to the Living Valley so their loved ones would know what had happened to them. He’d been quiet since Goras was brought back. He sat so unusually still as he worked, and I missed his usual shifting and jigging and humming. I was worried about him. But I was even more worried about Mae.

‘Princess Gwinellyn.’

I looked up at the sound of Vic Gedelli’s voice. He stood in the doorway, looking more careworn and ruffled than usual without one of his flamboyant hats.

‘Vic,’ I replied with the casual greeting, offering him a faint smile that he readily returned.

‘Forgive the interruption. His Majesty requests your attendance.’

He and Esario and the other Oceatold ministers and advisors had been locked in rooms dealing with stabalising the city for several days. While their focus was on such matters, my presence hadn’t been needed. The fact I was wanted now made me uneasy, since this surely meant they were ready to begin making decisions about our next move. We may have driven the invaders out of Port Howl, but that didn’t mean we’d won the war.

‘Now?’ I asked.

‘It’s urgent.’

My sense of unease thickened as I pushed back from the table, my gaze tunning over my downcast friends. Weighing their sacrifices. ‘Alright,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘Are my own advisors welcome?’

‘Of course,’ he said immediately. ‘I’ve already taken the liberty of collecting them.’

‘Good.’ I extended a hand to Elias. ‘Come on.’

He stared at it for a moment, before glancing up at me. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I need you.’

He nodded, accepting my hand and leaving his chair.

‘Mae? Tan?’ I prompted, looking from one, then to the other.

A little energy ignited in Mae’s expression, a spark in her eyes. She rose to her feet. Tan remained seated, gaze flicking between me and his list.

‘It’s up to you,’ I said gently. ‘You can keep working if you’d prefer.’

He nodded, looking back down at his list and gripping his pen tightly. ‘I’d like to get it finished.’

I inclined my head, accepting the choice, before following Vic out of the room with the others.

The room that had been adopted as the council chamber was already stuffy and stale. Too many hours of tense discussions had thickened the air, and those waiting at the table looked tired. Esario looked up as we entered, raising his brows as his gaze travelled over Mae and Elias. They sank back low again as I quietly asked one of the room’s attendants to add two more chairs to the table. The attendant hesitated only a moment before nodding and moving to fetch the chairs. Silence settled over the room.

Esario was the first to break it. ‘Gwinellyn,’ he said smoothly, though there was an edge to his voice. ‘I was not aware we would have… additional guests for this meeting.’

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