He grunted. “There are honourable men among them. And you will have to find one you can at least tolerate if this day is to mean anything.”
Could he not enjoy the moment without borrowing strife from the future? “A discussion better left for another hour, my prince.”
A rolling boom shook the chamber.
“The gates!” Dagan broke into a run and vanished into the root-woven passageway.
Melanna grasped at racing thoughts. “Tell me again of the honourable men in your court, Father.”
“They’d dare?” Her father drew his sword. “In the heart of the temple? In the Goddess’ sight?”
“Why not? They believe they do her work. They believe—”
A new sound rose in crescendo beneath the roots – a chorus of screeching crow-voices and thundering wings, growing ever louder. A sound she’d first heard months before at Tevar Flood and almost died for the privilege.
Kernclaw. She’d not known the name then, but she’d taken the trouble to learn it. An assassin lured from the shadows of the civilised world.
“Dagan!” she shouted.
A wet, tearing sound and a bellow of agony from the passageway cut through the squalling. The thump of a falling body. Harsh voices redoubled in fury. The chamber drowned in a rush of talons and beating wings.
The second Immortal vanished, overcome by the shadowy flock. Fresh screams rang out.
Across the chamber, corvine fragments coalesced into a hooded figure. One steel-taloned hand at the Immortal’s ravaged throat. The other against the torn and bloodied armour about his waist. Green eyes blazed beneath the ragged hood.
Melanna drew her sword. The Goddess’ sword. White flames sprang to life along the silvered blade. The shadow-flock parted with strident cry. Crows peeled away in panic.
Her father bellowed in pain. Melanna lunged to his side, bringing him within the safety of the firelight. She ignored the talons ripping at her hair, blotted the shrieking voices from her thoughts. Steel glinted within shadow. Metal scraped on metal. The weight vanished from her sword. Melanna’s flailing hand found soil and tangled roots.
Should’ve worn the armour. Not that armour had done Dagan or his fellow much good. And for all Melanna’s bitterness, she’d believed the temple safe ground, and the quarrels over the succession settled.
Honourable men. She’d teach them honour.
“What’s the matter, kernclaw?” Melanna shouted. “Afraid?”
Cruel laughter shook the chamber. “What a lioness! We should have charged more.”
Teeming bodies swamped everything beyond the sword’s light. The kernclaw could have been three paces away, or fled entirely.
Melanna glanced behind. Her father stood with his shoulder against the chamber’s roots. His sword-hand shook. His other pressed against the mess of torn scales and rushing blood at his flank. Already his robes were dark with it. His face was pale above his beard, tinged with greyish-green.
Poison?
“Go,” he breathed. “Leave me.”
Melanna’s throat tightened. “No.”
“You can’t best him. Save yourself.”
“I guard your life to my dying breath.” A booming chorus shuddered through the gloom. Fists and shoulders thumping against the timber gate. “Your Immortals are coming. We need only reach them.”
And if that wasn’t enough? Better to face the kernclaw in the cloister. The confines of the sanctum only made the shadow more oppressive and the clamour deafening. In the open, those advantages would fade. Theirs would grow, swollen by loyal blades.
Her father’s face twisted. He lurched into the passageway. Melanna gripped her sword tight and followed.
The sanctum gate emerged from shadow. Barred from within, and with two temple wardens crumpled at its foot.
Crow-voices blossomed anew.
Melanna spun about and lashed out at a shape half-seen. Talons gleamed. She struck them aside. Her wild backswing slashed at green eyes. The kernclaw shrieked. Eyes vanished into shadow.
“Father?”
She found him slumped against the wall, blood speckling his lips and the sword at his feet. Gasping for breath, he allowed Melanna to brace her shoulder beneath his, the mountain borne forth by the willow, stride by staggering stride.
The shadows of the passageway thickened with crow-voices.
The chorus of hammer-blows gave way to a crash of abused timber. A tide of Immortals trampled the ruined gates. They flooded past with swords drawn, plunging into shadow without hesitation. Screams vied with the thunder of wings.
Back arched beneath her father’s weight, Melanna lurched for the open air.
“Melanna…”
He slid away as the first moonlight touched Melanna’s face. She lowered him beside the altar. His fingers slipped from hers, leaving bloodied trails on golden silk.
“Father!”
She knelt and clutched his hand. Skirts clung to her legs, warm with his blood.
Uproar overtook the balconies as kings and princes descended into confusion. Some scrambled for the stairs, swords drawn and outrage on their lips. Others stared, frozen by events. One alone, resplendent in scarlet silks and the serpent of Icansae, reached the far neck of the bridge, steel naked in his hand, and two of his own Immortals at his back. Too distant to offer aid. The priestess who had so meanly welcomed Melanna stood immobile a few paces beyond.
Eleventh bell tolled, the distant bell ringers unaware that the ritual of coronation lay savaged beyond repair.
The last scream faltered. The sanctum’s empty gateway filled with shadow.
“Is this how the line of Saran fades?” The kernclaw’s mockery billowed. “In desperate flight? With wounds behind to mark its cowardice?”
Melanna let her father’s hand fall. She stood, her sire’s shuddering breaths to her back and the Goddess’ sword steady in her hands.
“You will not take him.” Her body shook to the words. Not the cold of fear, but anger’s searing flame. “Not while I live.”
“The commission was always for both.”
There it was. A truth known from the first. Her father died for loving her more than tradition.
She levelled the sword. “Dead men claim no coins.”
“And slain princessas no crowns.” Was his breathing at last ragged, or did Melanna hear only her own wild hopes? “I am of death, and you are nothing but a girl who clings to moonlight.”
Melanna drew up to her full height. “I am a princessa who commands it.”
With a screech of triumph, the crow-flock spread like monstrous wings.
A horn sounded. Not a trumpet, but the deep, breathy notes of a hunter’s salute, strident and sonorous. Then hoofbeats, quickened to the gallop.
Mist spilled beneath bare branches, and a shape coalesced behind. A rider with an antlered helm, and a cloak streaming like smoke. The white stag he rode as steed was more suggestion that substance, flesh and blood only when moonlight brushed its flanks. The head of his long spear blazed with starlight.
Melanna’s heart skipped.
The crow-flock screeched, shadow scattering before starlight. The spear-point ripped into the kernclaw’s chest and pinned him screaming to the bloodied soil.
The rider released the spear and wheeled about. His eyes met Melanna’s, green as the kernclaw’s were green, but vibrant where those of the crow-born promised only death.