Raven's Strike

Tier finished the song, then, striking a minor chord, began an ascending scale that built to a haunting arpeggio, the music forlorn and plaintive. His clever fingers flew over the gut frets of the lute, and the notes fell into a less disturbing tone as he began the story of Shadow’s Fall.

“It happened like this.”

Seraph had heard the story dozens of times before, so she paid little heed to the words. She surveyed the dead, but they seemed to be content with the lute-accompanied story, because they stayed where they were. The upper courses of Tier’s lute wove bits of heroic ballads and festival songs into a single melody over a subtle throbbing bass that gradually began to take on the rhythm of a heartbeat.

“This young man was a good king, which is to say that he promoted order and prosperity among his nobles and usually kept the rest from starvation.” Tier’s voice blended into his music.

When she was certain the dead were satisfied with Tier’s storytelling, she resumed her interrupted task of looking at Lehr to see how the Order was supposed to look in relation to spirit.

The smell didn’t startle her at first, though if she’d been paying attention, she’d have realized there was no reason for the library to start smelling like horses.

“I smell flowers,” whispered Lehr.

Once he said it, Seraph did, too. She looked up, but none of the dead had come closer.

Ah, she thought, returning to her examination of Lehr, no wonder the Path’s Masters had such a difficult time retrieving just the Order, no wonder it took months to separate spirit from Order—spirit is woven between the threads of Order like warp and weft.

She heard the sound of sword meeting sword, but when she looked up, she could see nothing that would account for the sound—or for the sudden smell of the sweat of combat.

“None of his guardsmen or nobles could stand against him with sword or staff,” said Tier.

Seraph looked at him incredulously, and she realized that even as she had restricted the magic she used for most of the two decades she and Tier had been married—so had he.

“He established libraries at every village,” said Tier, and the scent of dust and mildew overwhelmed that actual scent of the library they were in, which smelled only of leather, parchment, and preservation spells. “And in his capital he collected more books than had ever been assembled together then or since. Perhaps that was the reason for what happened to him.”

She was so in awe of what he was doing, it took her a moment to realize the cord of the Shadowed’s magic she’d been holding steady, the one binding Tier’s Order to the gem, was trying to pull away from her—and before she pulled it back, she realized it was pulling the wrong way. It was pulling back toward Tier. She released it.

“Time passed, and the king grew old and wizened as his sons became strong and wise. People waited without worry for the old king to die and his oldest son to take the crown.” Tier stilled his fingers for a moment, so that his silence waited like the people had waited for the old king to die.

Two beats of silence… three, then he began a run of minor chords, echoing the melody he’d used to begin the story. “One evening the king’s oldest son went to bed, complaining of a headache. By the next day he was blind and covered with boils; by that evening he was dead. Plague had struck the palace, and, before it left, the queen and every male of royal blood were dead.” The familiar melody twisted with a weight of sorrow. An occasional plucked harmonic rang like a widow’s wail.

Then, Lehr’s startled gasp made her look away from Tier, where she’d been caught by the magic of his words and music.

She saw Hi

And before them all, untouched by Seraph’s magicked sense of sight, stood the U

The music became momentarily militant, sharp percussive taps of the lute’s face evoking drums and marching troops as Tier told of the army Loriel formed, one whose core would go on to fight to the end. Abrupt, discordant, wild strains starting and stopping suddenly followed by a cacophony of strident squeaks and slides, as Tier told of Loriel’s death. Always, throbbing steadily beneath the other sounds, was the rhythm of the U

It was hard to keep her attention on the reality of the Shadowed’s spell when Tier’s rich baritone called for her attention. Still, she watched him as the power of his music slowly forced the Shadowed’s spell to yield its prey. Seraph pulled the gem out of the belt pouch where she’d put it, and it was warm in her hand.

A man’s scream pulled her attention back to the battlefield the library had become. She couldn’t tell if the noise had been made by one of their boys, the dead, or by some quirk of Tier’s storytelling magic.

Seraph recognized the wide field they’d ridden across a few days ago, but this time there were bodies lying everywhere, and the stench of death made Seraph’s gorge rise.

The bass courses of the lute continued to measure the steady pulse of the Shadowed, but the melody faltered, quieted. She saw Red Ernave fighting the Shadowed King, who was even more frightening than she’d ever thought he could be. Tier’s fingers played a melody that stuttered and strained, falling a bit behind the beat, as if too exhausted to continue, the proud strains of military airs made aching and painful by their very slowness.

Under his red beard, Ernave looked like Tier a little, and Seraph thought that might have been why she cried when he died at the end of the battle. Or maybe it was because the garnet in her hand had shattered into minute shards, and Tier was covered head to toe in the grey-green fabric of his Order.

CHAPTER 18

“Well,” Tier said, his fingers picking out bits of melody that seemed to be keeping the dead away from them all while he caught his breath. “That went better than last time.”

He looked at Seraph. “Something’s different. What did you do?”

“I should be asking you that question,” Seraph said. “You told me you learned a few things while you were alone in the Path’s dungeons, but that was extraordinary. I know Bards are supposed to be able to make their stories feel real. I suppose I never realized what that meant.”

“I’ve seen a Bard or two who could build pictures, sights, or sounds with their power,” said He

Tier gri

“Your control is better,” it said. “You didn’t leak power all over for anyone to feed upon.”

“And I didn’t get caught up and need rescuing.” Tier’s fingers found another song, something instrumental that was light and airy that seemed to clear the depressed atmosphere left by the death of Red Ernave. “Maybe it was adding music to the mix.”

“Kissel, where are you going?” asked Toarsen.