CHAPTER 11
Alaria knocked once before entering.
Atyas opened his eyes to darkness, a closed door and the memory of another room burning around him. His hand reached beneath the pillow.
There was no dagger there.
Alaria watched the movement without comment. She wore a plain black tunic instead of armour. A leather brace supported her ribs beneath it, and the stiffness in her left leg had not entirely disappeared. She placed a folded set of training clothes at the foot of his bed.
“Get dressed.”
Atyas looked towards the narrow window. Dawn had not begun.
“Is Feenix under attack?”
“Not at present.”
“Then why are you waking me?”
“Because an attack would be a poor time to begin preparing for one.”
She left before he could find another objection. It was the fifth morning since they reached Feenix. Each day had begun with the same three questions. Had the scouts found Eridan? Had anyone seen Seraphina leave the palace? Had a surviving officer established lawful command anywhere inside Asehria? Every answer remained the same.
Not yet.
Atyas dressed.
Alaria’s old road sword rested inside a locked chest beside the bed. Solara had ordered the seven-star clasp hidden before any servant entered the rooms. Only Alaria, Solara and General Veyra knew both had reached Feenix. Atyas touched the lid but did not open it. Alaria waited beyond the second guarded door. Two Phoenix Guards stood there, both selected from soldiers who had served beneath her before she left Feenix. They saluted as she passed. Neither asked where she was taking the injured courier hidden within the infirmary wing.
They descended through the palace by service stairs and enclosed passages until they reached a small courtyard beneath the western wall. High stone surrounded it on every side. The only window had been shuttered from within, and two guards waited outside the single entrance. A rack of wooden weapons stood beneath the covered walkway. Atyas stared at them.
“Wood?”
Alaria selected a practice sword and threw it to him.
“The healers objected when I requested sharpened steel.”
“You ignored them when they told you to remain in bed.”
“I ignore advice selectively. It gives people hope.”
Atyas tested the weight of the weapon. It was lighter than Alaria’s road sword and slightly heavier than the practice blades Seraphina had used in Asehria. Alaria took a short wooden blade from the rack.
“Attack me.”
“You’re still injured.”
“Then this should be easy.”
He moved into the guard Seraphina had taught him. Alaria stood with her left side turned towards him. Her practice blade hung beside her leg. She did not look ready.
Atyas knew better.
He approached carefully and struck towards her shoulder. She moved half a step. His sword passed in front of her. The wooden point in her hand touched his wrist. His fingers opened from the shock.
The sword struck the ground.
“Again,” Alaria said.
Atyas retrieved it.
This time he feinted towards her shoulder and turned the cut towards her ribs. Alaria stepped inside the movement. Her elbow stopped against his chest. The short blade rested beneath his jaw.
“Again.”
On the fourth attempt, she used his arm to turn him towards the wall. On the sixth, she caught his ankle with her foot and placed him on his back. On the ninth, Atyas reached her wounded side.
He hesitated.
Alaria struck his knuckles and took the sword from him.
“You stopped.”
“You’re hurt.”
“The person who killed your mother was hurt.”
The courtyard changed.
For one terrible moment, Atyas smelled smoke instead of damp stone. He tore the sword from her hand and attacked. The current came with the anger before he chose how much to release. It tightened his legs, drove heat into his shoulders and made the first cut faster than any he had attempted that morning.
Alaria retreated.
He followed with every formal cut Seraphina had taught him. High. Low. Shoulder. Leg. Each strike carried more force than the last.
Alaria never blocked one directly.
She turned her body, changed the angle or allowed his weapon to pass through the place she had occupied. Her injured leg prevented the speed Atyas had seen in the palace, yet she remained impossible to catch. When he drove her towards a pillar, she placed one foot against the stone and changed direction before he understood she had stopped retreating.
The short blade struck his ribs.
Her empty hand closed around his wrist. The courtyard turned around him. Atyas hit the ground with Alaria’s knee between his shoulders and his own wooden sword across the back of his neck.
“Enough.”
“Get off me.”
She did.
Atyas rose too quickly. Pain travelled through his bruised ribs.
“You made me angry.”
“Yes.”
“It made me stronger.”
“I knew where the next cut was going.” Alaria touched the wooden blade against his shoulder. “You kept looking at the place you wanted to hit.”
“That was unfair.”
“Yes.”
Alaria returned the practice sword and walked towards the courtyard door. She stopped between Atyas and the iron latch.
“Your next task is to leave the yard.”
“By defeating you?”
“By touching the latch.”
“You are standing in front of it.”
“That is why this requires training.”
Atyas raised the sword.
“The palace belongs to them now,” Alaria said.
Anger brought the current before any plan followed it. Atyas attacked her instead of the door. Alaria gave ground without meeting the strength directly. He followed. Each time she moved, the next strike had already committed him to the place she had left.
Her wooden blade touched his ribs.
The door remained behind her.
“Again,” Atyas said.
He tried to summon the same force and swung before she had taken her position. Nothing answered. The practice blade cut ordinary air.
“Where did it go?”
Alaria waited while he tried again. The blade shook in his hand; he could no longer find the rush that had driven him across the yard.
“Lower it. Breathe.”
He did neither. She returned to the door.
“Your father has not sent for you.”
Fear shortened his breath. Atyas looked east before he could stop himself. Alaria crossed the space and placed her blade against his chest.
“Again.”
She moved back.
“Your mother died, and you did not.”
Atyas forgot the latch.
He forgot the wooden sword.
For one moment, he wanted only to hurt the person who had said it. Alaria saw the change and lowered her own weapon.
“That was too far,” she said.
“You think?”
“Yes.”
“Why say it?”
“Because someone will say worse when neither of us controls the ground beneath you.” She held his gaze. “That explains my choice. It does not excuse it.”
Atyas looked past her at the latch.
“Move.”
Alaria stepped aside. He crossed the yard without raising his sword. When he reached the door, he pressed his palm against the cold iron and stood there. Beyond it he could hear someone sweeping the passage.
He wanted his mother. He did not want to say it where Alaria could hear.
“I should have stopped,” she said behind him.
He kept his hand on the latch.
“Yes.”
She put her practice blade down. Atyas turned far enough to see her lower herself onto the bench beside the wall, protecting her injured side. For once she had nothing to ask him. He stayed by the door until the scraping of the broom moved away.
The latch moved beneath his hand. Atyas stepped back to let Solara enter. She had come without attendants. Her gaze passed from the wooden sword in Atyas’s hands to the stiffness Alaria was failing to hide.
“Breakfast,” she said.
Alaria left her blade on the bench.
“Did you come to supervise breakfast?”
“I came to give authority to something we are already asking you to do.”
“That distinction has never improved my work.”
“Feenix will recognise you as Atyas’s Guardian.”
Solara stopped in front of her.
Alaria’s answer did not come quickly.
“Eridan did not appoint me.”
“This is sanctuary under Phoenix law,” Solara said. “You would control his rooms, access and immediate safety until a parent freely resumes his care or he comes of age. You gain no command over Asehria.”
Alaria looked towards Atyas.
“He has not been asked.”
“I am asking both of you now.”
She turned to Atyas.
“You may choose someone else.”
Atyas looked at Alaria. She had not picked up the sword again. He was still angry with her; he could not imagine choosing someone he would have to explain everything to.
“I choose her.”
“You have been in Feenix less than a week,” Alaria said.
“I have known you for twelve years.”
That silenced her.
“Do you choose me?” Atyas asked.
Alaria held his gaze. Her answer was quieter than any order Atyas had heard her give.
“Yes.”
Solara allowed the answer to stand before giving it law.
“Then while Atyas remains a minor beneath Feenix’s sanctuary, Alaria is his Guardian. The appointment ends if Eridan freely resumes his care, when Atyas reaches adulthood or if Atyas asks for another and I am satisfied the choice is his.”
“Eridan may object,” Alaria said.
“Then finding him will provide us with one more reason to be pleased.”
For the first time since Solara entered, some of the tension left Alaria’s shoulders.
“The training is a separate responsibility,” Solara said. “I want you to prepare him for the people hunting him. I will teach him what I can of councils and crowns.”
Alaria glanced at the practice sword in Atyas’s hands.
“He has had enough for today.”
Solara looked between them. “Then today we eat.”
Atyas left his sword beside Alaria’s. He waited while she stood, but walked through the door ahead of her.
Solara waited in a room containing no throne. There were no banners, petitioners or gold-backed chairs. A long table occupied most of the floor. Maps had been unrolled across it, held flat by bowls, ink bottles and sealed reports. Breakfast waited at one end. Atyas ate while Solara read. She had changed clothes since issuing the night’s orders but did not appear to have slept. Her dark hair had been tied back without ceremony. A plain iron clasp shaped like a phoenix held her cloak in place.
“How many times did she put you on the ground?” Solara asked.
“Nine.”
“You counted?”
“The first nine.”
Solara looked over the report.
“Eat while it is warm.”
“She shouldn’t be training yet.”
“I told her that.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing respectful.”
Solara reached for the next report. Atyas looked at the empty chair opposite hers.
“Is someone else coming?”
“No. I thought you might sit there.”
He had taken the nearest chair when he entered. Solara moved an ink bottle and the rolled map beside it, making space across from her. Atyas carried his plate around the table. From here, the papers no longer stood between them.
“Would you like something else?” she asked.
“This is enough.”
She began to unfold the report. He watched her hands.
“Are you eating?”
Solara looked at her own plate, then put the paper down. She broke a piece from the remaining bread and drew the butter towards her. Atyas waited while she spread it.
“You need not wait for me,” she said.
“I know.”
He did anyway. Solara took a bite, and he returned to his breakfast. She asked whether the bedding had been warm enough. He told her the blanket scratched his chin. She folded back the cuff of her sleeve and listened while he described how Alaria had tried to make it softer by turning it over.
When he reached for the last piece of bread, Solara placed the report beside his plate.
Columns of numbers covered the page.
“Read.”
Atyas swallowed the bread in his mouth.
“Eleven million, four hundred thousand registered at the eastern crossings. Another six million approaching by the canal roads. Nine hundred thousand waiting south of the river because the bridges cannot carry more.”
He turned the page.
“Valanor reports eighteen million Asehrians within its borders. The northern kingdoms have counted twenty-three million between them.”
Atyas turned back to the first page. The canal totals ran beneath a smear of butter from his fingers.
“Can they all get food?”
“Not from the same roads.” Solara moved a bowl off the map. “The eastern canals could feed eight million each day if we took every merchant vessel. The army needs the wagons on these roads. And the southern wells are contaminated.”
He followed the marked roads until his finger reached the edge of the sheet.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Read with me. There are people here who may listen to you before they listen to a Feenix official.”
“Because they think Father is dead.”
Solara put down her cup.
“Some of them do. I cannot promise you otherwise.”
Atyas kept his eyes on the page. He wanted to push it away. After a while he drew it closer, looking for the district names among the totals.
“Who leads the districts?”
“Three Feenix magistrates share the east with two surviving Asehrian officials. The soldiers obey whoever they still recognise. In the south, ask Pera Tal about the wells and Jonan Es about the sick.”
“The physician?”
“He kept the southern clinic open through the reception surge. Seven street representatives work beside them. None of their names is on your page.”
“Why aren’t their names in the report?”
“This is the storehouse copy. The grain clerks need quantities. You need the district reports as well.”
Atyas looked at the empty space beneath the southern total.
“Can I see those?”
Solara brought a second bundle from the other end of the table. He moved his plate to make room. The first account was signed by Pera Tal; someone had folded it while the ink was wet, and her name had left a faint reversed copy on the next page.
He read until Solara reached across to point out a place he had missed.
Alaria kept steel out of the courtyard during the first weeks. She made Atyas remember objects while defending himself, placed chairs across his retreat and changed the exercise when he began watching only her weapon. When anger brought the current ahead of his footing, they stopped.
Her brace grew narrower. She could braid her hair without pausing and cross the yard without favouring her leg. Atyas began to last longer against her, then less long as she recovered. One morning she threw sand across his boots and took his sword while he looked down.
“You cheat.”
“You keep giving me time.”
She returned the weapon. He moved before she could reach for the sand again.
Only then did Alaria unlock the chest in his room and carry her old road sword to the courtyard. She laid it upon a bench between them. It was a short fighting blade built for narrow roads and rooms, from the years before Alaria had carried embersteel. Its spine was stronger than its plain appearance suggested, its guard worn smooth where her thumb had once rested and its balance close enough to the hand that Atyas could change direction without fighting the weapon.
“Draw it.”
Atyas did.
The blade bore new marks from the forest. A shallow notch interrupted one edge. Smoke had darkened the leather near the guard, but nothing upon it named Atyas or his kingdom.
“The nick is new,” Alaria said.
“There was a soldier.”
“I remember. Show me the cut.”
She hung a rope beneath the walkway. He settled his feet, turned and let the edge follow. The severed end fell between them.
Alaria replaced it a little higher.
Solara claimed the hours after breakfast.
She taught him how treaties concealed threats inside courteous sentences and how quickly a gift became a debt when accepted before witnesses. She placed letters from neighbouring rulers before him and made him explain what each writer wanted but had avoided requesting directly. One offered to shelter the surviving royal family of Asehria inside an impregnable fortress.
“They want custody of me,” Atyas said.
“Yes.”
Another offered troops to reclaim the eastern provinces in exchange for temporary authority over their ports.
“They want the ports.”
“They have wanted the ports for thirty years.”
“Then why pretend it is help?”
“Because conquest is expensive and assistance receives invitations.”
From behind a carved screen, Atyas heard Pera Tal ask for the return of her front room. Two Asehrian families slept there. Her father could no longer climb to his bed above the kitchen.
“Could the families move to the new ward?” Solara asked.
“They could. The ward clerk says the room is still available because it has a roof.”
Atyas waited for Solara to tell her how many people had no roof at all. Instead, the Queen called for the receiving clerk.
“Move them together. Their next room must be ready before anyone takes a bed out of this one.”
The clerk asked for three days. Pera counted them upon her fingers, then sat down to wait for the address.
After the audience, Atyas asked why she had sounded angry with them.
“Her father has slept in a chair for a fortnight,” Solara said. She took the room return out of the completed stack and placed it beside tomorrow’s work.
At midday, General Veyra delivered the search reports. For the first five days, they changed almost nothing. Scouts found survivors from the western barracks. They recovered three officers of the Lunar Watch, two wounded council messengers and thousands of civilians hidden beneath a collapsed transit station. None had seen Eridan leave the palace. No body bearing the king’s armour had been found. Seraphina remained missing. Each absence kept hope alive just long enough to make the next report hurt. On their seventeenth day in Feenix, Veyra entered before the lesson had begun. She carried no map. Two Feenix officers accompanied her, along with an Asehrian river warden whose bandaged feet had left blood upon the palace floor.
Solara read the message they brought three times.
Then she handed it to Alaria.
“Say it,” Atyas demanded.
Solara looked at him.
“Your father is alive.”
The room lost every sound except his breathing.
“Where?”
“He escaped through the flood-control galleries beneath the inner river. A company of river wardens found him six days later beyond the Talren locks. He has joined the surviving provincial armies and established field command west of the capital region.”
Atyas reached for the message.
Veyra kept it beyond his hand.
“How do you know it is his?” she asked.
He looked at the royal seal. Then he understood why she had not given him the page.
“The seal proves nothing.”
“Good.”
Veyra placed three smaller statements beside it. One came from the wounded river warden. One had been carried by a Feenix scout. The third bore the names of two Asehrian officers Alaria knew and a private challenge Solara had once agreed with Eridan to use if either kingdom’s court was compromised.
Alaria finished reading.
Her thumb remained pressed against the private challenge until the paper bent beneath it.
“It is him.” Her voice failed on the final word.
Atyas closed his eyes. For seventeen days, hope had been something other people warned him not to trust.
Now it had his father’s voice.
Eridan’s message did not ask Feenix to reclaim Asehria for him. It named the armies still holding the lower river provinces, the cities that remained beyond Keh’Dia control and the civilian roads his soldiers were trying to keep open. It requested grain, bridge engineers, physicians and troops to reinforce the western line before the attackers divided it.
Solara gave the order before sunset.
“Place me with the first division,” Alaria said.
Atyas looked at her. She was still wearing a brace beneath her tunic. That did not make the request sound temporary.
“No,” Solara replied.
“When the healers clear me.”
“Still no.”
“This is Eridan.”
“I know,” Solara said. “That is why you asked before you can cross a courtyard without reopening your wound.”
“You need officers who have fought the Keh’Dia and recognise their methods.”
“Veyra has your report. You will prepare the officers crossing the border.”
“A report does not make decisions in a fight.”
“Nor does it protect Atyas when the people who crossed an entire kingdom to take him discover that he is here.”
Alaria’s eyes hardened.
“He is inside your palace.”
“The Keh’Dia entered Eridan’s palace in Asehrian uniforms and used Seraphina’s signals. Feenix has already found compromised responses along its border. Safety is not a room containing enough guards.”
The words sounded as though Solara had borrowed them from Alaria.
“This is not a permanent answer,” Alaria said.
“No. It is my answer until lawful contact tells us whether Eridan needs your sword at his front more than his son needs it here.”
Alaria did not agree.
She also did not place her name upon the relief rolls. The first Feenix relief columns crossed the border the following morning. Engineers and supplies travelled between two armed divisions. Scouts moved ahead of them with new countersigns, while separate riders carried copies of every order so that no single captured messenger could redirect the army. Feenix had not entered the war to conquer Asehria. It had entered because Asehria was still fighting. In the evenings, Atyas sometimes opened the cabinet containing Isolde’s letters. He never read more than one.
Most contained nothing that belonged in histories. His mother complained about banquets, described arguments with provincial governors and recorded small victories over Eridan’s habit of leaving military maps upon their dining table. One letter described Atyas at six, returning from a ride with mud across his face and a wooden horse clutched beneath one arm.
Alaria insists the ditch appeared without warning, Isolde had written. Our son has learned loyalty early and judgement more slowly.
Atyas read the sentence three times.
Then he returned to the courtyard before sunrise.
On their twenty-third day in Feenix, Solara removed every map from the lesson room. A silver drinking cup stood between two chairs. Alaria remained by the door, one hand resting against the place where her brace had been.
“Today I rule a northern kingdom sheltering eight million Asehrians,” Solara said. “Their grain runs out in six days. You have come to ask for more.”
“Which kingdom?”
“Would it change your request?”
“I would know which roads to ask for.”
“Good. You agreed to this meeting before finding that out.”
She sat back. Her face acquired the patient warmth Atyas remembered from his father’s visiting ambassadors.
“Prince Atyas. My court is prepared to recognise you as King of Asehria and feed every refugee within our borders.”
“Father is alive.”
“Then as regent. His field command cannot reach everyone now living at our expense.”
“You don’t get to speak about him like that.”
His chair scraped backwards. Solara picked up her cup.
“The meeting is over.”
Atyas remained half standing.
“You insulted him.”
“And now you have six days to find another supply. Sit down.”
He sat. Alaria watched from the door without rescuing him.
“What did I want?” Solara asked.
“To make me take Father’s crown.”
“For what?”
He had no answer.
“Ask before you leave. You may discover something useful even when you intend to refuse.”
She resumed her courteous expression.
“Prince Atyas, my people have been moved by your suffering.”
“How much grain?”
“Enough to demonstrate our friendship.”
“How many barges?”
“Four million measures before the first frost.”
Atyas tried to divide that by eight million people. He lost the sum when she spoke again.
“Surely your advisers can attend to the quantities later.”
“I want them here.”
“Do you doubt my generosity?”
“I can’t work out what it feeds.”
Solara waited. He looked towards the empty place where the map had been.
“Which road would it come by?”
“The western ports, which I request as security. Temporary control only.”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you have another security to offer.”
He had expected her to argue about the ports. He looked at Alaria, then back at Solara.
“I could ask the councils what they have.”
“While the grain runs out?”
“Feenix could pay for the first barges.”
Alaria shifted beside the door.
Atyas stopped. “I would have to ask you.”
“And I might refuse,” Solara said in her ordinary voice.
He stared at the cup. “Did I make anything better?”
“You found out what I wanted. You also promised my money before asking whether I had it.”
“I said I would ask.”
“Afterwards.”
She brought the maps back. Atyas moved his chair so she could lay out the western roads.
“Find another way to feed them for the six days,” she said. “Then we can try the meeting again.”
He asked for the district reports and a page for the sum. Solara sent for both.
Atyas returned to the training courtyard after dark.
Alaria was waiting.
“I thought we trained before sunrise.”
“Enemies are poor observers of schedules.”
She threw him the wooden sword.
“Reach the door.”
“That is all?”
“Without allowing me to touch your chest, throat or head.”
“You are standing in front of it.”
“A remarkable military observation.”
Atyas raised the weapon. Three weeks earlier, he would have attacked her directly; that morning, he would have attempted to force her away from the door. Now he looked at the courtyard without turning his head: the weapon rack to the left, the stone bench to the right, loose sand beneath the central posts. One lantern hung above the covered walkway.
Alaria moved first. Atyas retreated towards the bench. Her short blade struck. He turned it aside and allowed his sword to continue past hers rather than stopping against it. Alaria changed hands and stepped towards his unguarded side. He kicked the bench between them. She crossed it without slowing. Atyas threw his wooden sword at the lantern. Alaria looked up despite herself. The weapon missed the light, struck the chain and sent the lantern swinging across her path. Atyas ran. Her hand caught the back of his tunic. He let the garment pull over one shoulder, turned inside it and reached the door as her wooden blade touched his ribs. They stopped.
“You reached it,” Alaria said.
“You touched my ribs.”
“I did not forbid that.”
Atyas looked back at her.
“You chose the rules carefully.”
“So should you.”
She released his tunic.
Atyas retrieved the practice sword.
“I promised Solara’s money today,” Atyas said.
“I heard.”
“You could have stopped me.”
“She did.”
Alaria steadied the swinging lantern and unwrapped her old road sword.
“Hold this while I mend the chain.”
He drew the sword. Atyas turned the old blade beneath the lantern. The nick near its point was still there; he caught it lightly beneath his thumbnail.
“Again tomorrow?” he asked.
“After breakfast.”
End of chapter