Page 139 of Play of Shadows

‘Ready for what?’ Teo asked.

‘Damelas, you can’t,’ Rhyleis cried, as if she’d worked out what I was going to attempt. ‘The Veristor’s gift isn’t meant for this—’

But I had already closed my eyes and was pushing my awareness past the unbearable agony and into the echoes of a thousand memories of the dead, even as I forced my consciousness to stay rooted in the present.

A gift meant to be shared, Ajelaine had told me. I’d thought she’d meant that it was my duty to uncover the truth of past events and make them known to all. But I finally understood what she’d been trying to tell me. A Veristor could do so much more. . .as long as you’re willing to pay the price.

In the aching quiet of my mind, I laughed.Pay the price? For these lunatic actors I adore? For this city? My Lady Ajelaine, I hope some remnant of your spirit is watching. . .

’Places, everyone,’ I said aloud. ’The final act’s about to begin.’

Chapter 72

The Veristor’s Gift

The hardest part was keeping myself from being swept back into the past, into those memories of battles won and lost; the thrills of sword thrusts brilliantly parried, of those last, terrible instants of terror when a cold blade buried itself in a chest or belly. Undaunted, I forced my mind to wade deeper into the ocean of their lost recollections, drawing them into myself.

I will give the dead voice, I swore, the copper taste of blood filling my mouth where I’d bitten my lip to distract myself from the pain.Even if it kills me.

‘What’s happening?’ Beretto asked, taking my arm over his shoulder to keep me upright. ‘Make him stop– we’re losing him!’

‘Hysterics won’t help him,’ Rhyleis snapped, and grabbed my jaw. ‘Listen to me, Veristor. You’ve bound yourself to too many memories. Whatever happens, you must not let go of the present, do you understand? Damelas, can you hear m—?’

Screams arose from the courtyard where the Iron Orchids had erected their gibbet and were lashing Monsegino’s limbs to it. Seven men were brandishing iron spikes, relishing the cheers of their fellows even as they ignored the cries of the new Duchess of Pertine. Kareija was screaming for someone to save her nepheweven as her own nobles restrained her. No one was listening to her, nor to those in the crowd who recognised injustice when they saw it, but lacked the means to fight back against swords and spears.

‘By all the gods,’ Ornella swore, ‘they’re really going to do it! They’re going to commit this. . . this atrocity in front of the entire city!’

The heat of her smouldering fury was shared by all our fellow Knights of the Curtain. Fists clenched, jaws tightened to breaking point. Despair was a palpable thing now; it felt to me as if a thousand necromancers from the old tales were summoning devils to overrun the world.

Saints give me the strength to conjure a few spirits of our own, I prayed, as my mind began slipping helplessly into the past.I’m not strong enough– I can’t—

A familiar shoulder slid under my other arm to share my weight. I’d begged him to stay away tonight, yet some part of me had counted on him coming. Through the cacophony raging in the courtyard and the even louder noise in my skull, I heard the voice which had always been there when I needed it, from the day my mother died giving birth to me, through all the loneliness and fears of my childhood.

‘I’m here, my boy,’ my grandfather said. ‘With you to the end.’

‘And me,’ Beretto said, with what might have been a sentimental sob.

More love than any two souls could possibly contain, I thought, relinquishing the responsibility of keeping myself upright to my grandfather and my best friend.That must be why they share it so freely.

‘Take me down to them,’ I said, my voice gravelly from the pain. ‘I need to be among them.’

‘Are you mad?’ Abastrini demanded, putting his bulk between us and the steps to the courtyard. ‘You’ll be killed!’

I tried to conjure a smile out of the throbbing in my skull. ‘I’m not one for suicide, Master Abastrini. I merely go to fulfil the duke’s last request of me before he gave up his crown.’

The other Knights of the Curtain stared back at me, confused, but after a moment, Abastrini, who perhaps understood the ways of the Veristor more than he realised, breathed, ‘Saints, can such a thing be possible?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Let’s go and find out.’

Abastrini shoved the others into position around me as Beretto and my grandfather helped me down the steps and into the panicked crowds of Jereste’s citizenry who were trying and failing to evade the Orchids’ goading weapons.

‘This had better be one Hell of a speech,’ Beretto muttered as they reached the bottom.

‘It’s not a speech,’ I said, thinking it was unlikely anyone could hear me over the racket.It’s a play.

I allowed my mind’s eye to drift back to the battlefield of Mount Cruxia, searching for a particular warrior there even as my gaze sought out the nearest of my fellow citizens here in the courtyard. I nearly laughed out loud when I saw it was Vadris. The drug-pedlar was crouching in front of me, no sign now of the orchid emblem of which he’d been so proud.

Apparently even sleazy pleasure-pepper merchants can have souls.

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