“When we stumbled in,” he continued, “we found Drago kneeling before our sister’s bloodied corpse.”
“And so you shouted out,” Zared said. He shifted uneasily, glancing at the two small horns that curled out of Isfrael’s hair.
Isfrael swept his eyes back to Drago and managed to bare his teeth and hiss at the same time. “Murderer!”
“Murderer,” Caelum repeated flatly.
“No,” Zenith and Drago said almost as one.
“No,” Drago said again. “I did not do it. That I swear.”
Zenith reached out with her power, testing his response, and sensed that he spoke the truth. She looked at Caelum, about to speak, but her eldest brother responded first.
“Liar! You were ever the murderer! You tried to kill me, and you have finally succeeded with RiverStar!” He turned to the door and used both voice and power in his summoning. “Guards!”
Drago finally dropped the knife. It fell softly, almost apologetically, on RiverStar’s body.
“No!” he shouted, and Zenith winced at the negative reverberating around the room. You too?
“No,” Drago said more quietly, his voice surprising in its dignity. “I did not murder RiverStar. I may have hated her, but I did not murder her. I will not admit to something I did not do. But I do not expect you of all people to believe me, Caelum.”
His face was very, very calm.
Again, silence.
Then Zared spoke. “Caelum, the guards are here. What do you want them to -”
“They will take Drago and they will chain him -”
“Caelum, please -” Zenith began.
“- and they will throw him into the most secure cell we have. There,” Caelum’s voice hardened, “he will rot until this time ,’ decide how he shall be punished!”
“Perhaps you would give him to me for an Avar trial,” Isfrael said, a gleam in his eyes. “I can ensure he would receive due justice.”
“No,” FreeFall said. “Leave him with Caelum, Isfrael. Caelum will see that he gets -”
“Caelum,” Zared interrupted, “Drago should be kept under watch, surely, but is there need for such measures? He has denied RiverStar’s murder -”
“You were not the one to suffer days under Gorgrael’s claws!” Caelum shouted. “How dare you preach to me how this… this traitor should be handled?”
Zenith rose, and reached across RiverStar’s body for Drago’s hand. It was sticky with his sister’s blood. “Drago,” she said quietly, “what did you mean when you said you had a dark hole in your memory? Tell me.”
Suddenly she felt an angry hand about her arm and she was wrenched backwards.
“You will stay away from him, Zenith!” Caelum said, waving the guards forward to take Drago into their custody. He opened his mouth to say more, but there was a step in the doorway.
Everyone in the room looked to see who it was.
Everyone in the room stilled, their emotions a mixture of fear, awe and, for some, gladness.
In the doorway stood Axis, God of Song, and his wife, Azhure, Goddess of Moon. Although they were dressed in simple robes, they exuded unimaginable power. All felt it and, feeling it, feared it.
Axis and Azhure – parents of RiverStar. They looked only at her body, strewn so carelessly on the floor. Both their faces had paled, and Azhure had a hand clasped over her mouth.
Axis slowly raised his eyes from his daughter’s corpse to Drago. “Do you know what I said to your mother, Drago, when she recounted how she had punished you for your part in Caelum’s kidnapping? I said that if I had been there I would have killed you.”
He paused. “This time I will see that you are put to death.”
Caelum stood with his parents in his chamber. They held each other, their tears streaming freely. RiverStar had not been the most lovable of children, and as an adult she had spurned her parents’ love, but that had not stopped Axis and Azhure loving her with all the strength they had, and that did not stop their grief now.
Azhure was trembling and still very pale, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. On one side, Axis had an arm about her, on the other, Caelum, both giving her all the support and love they could.
Azhure had struggled so hard to keep RiverStar when she had been but a babe in the womb. To see her so brutally murdered was almost more than she could absorb.
Axis was the first to recover, and he wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, and looked at Caelum.
“He must die.”
Caelum nodded. “He will, Father. This time he will die.”
They stood there a long time, holding each other in silent comfort. Then Axis and Azhure made their way back to RiverStar’s chamber where her body, now cleaned of its blood, was upon her bed. They were gods, but they could do nothing but grieve as parents.
They stood long minutes, staring, then Azhure reached out a hand and ran it down RiverStar’s cold face.
“Goodbye,” she whispered.
And then she and Axis vanished.
Having hosted the Council of Five three days earlier, now the Great Hall of Sigholt was arrayed for a trial.
About the dais at the far end of the Hall a plain wooden throne, several chairs and a table had been arranged. Before the dais were set several smaller tables. To either side were seats for the SunSoar family, the four remaining heads of the Five Families, their lieutenants and assistants. The body of the Hall was filled with curious, murmuring people from Lakesview, a goodly number of the Icarü Strike Force who were stationed in Sigholt, and most of Sigholt’s servants.
Standing in ranks down either side of the Hall, and behind the seats of the Five and the SunSoar Families, were several hundred silent members of the Lake Guard. Here, as always, to serve StarSon in whatever manner they saw fit. WingRidge CurlClaw stood several paces in front of their leading ranks, only a pace or two behind the Throne of the Stars itself.
At noon the heads of the Five Families filed silently onto the dais and took their seats, and behind them came Isfrael. He looked tense and unhappy in the stone hall, surrounded by so many people, and he hesitated briefly before finally taking his seat. The SunSoar family then moved into their places: EvenSong, FreeFall’s wife and Axis’ sister, and Zenith. Princess Leagh of the West sat next to Zenith. As the heads of the Five arranged themselves in their seats, Caelum entered the Hall and stepped onto the dais. He glanced at the assembled crowd, then walked over to the throne and sat down silently.
As always he was dressed entirely in black, save for a golden sun that blazed from the centre panel of his tunic. With his black hair and his angry, dark blue eyes, he looked exactly what he was supposed to look like – a dispatcher of justice, and the ultimate authority in the realm.
Zenith looked about for WolfStar but could not see him. She heaved a sigh of relief, and her hands relaxed from the claws they had been bunched into. She had not seen the Enchanter for three days, not since the night he’d kissed her above Sigholt.
She had not slept well since. Her eyes were ringed with dark shadows, her skin pasty. Every time she slept she would find herself on the Island of Mist and Memory, reading the rites at Yuletide, moving familiarly about the quarters of the First Priestess, sitting at her desk to write to her unborn daughter.
The nights were unendurable, and Zenith had taken to drinking stimulants to keep herself awake.
To keep Niah at bay.
Beside her, Leagh was torn between observing the huge crowd gathering in the Hall, and watching her friend with concern. Zenith was not herself, something seemed to be worrying her to the point where the Enchanter virtually refused to eat, and Leagh had almost forgotten her own troubles in the strength of her anxiety for Zenith.
But every so often Leagh would remember Zared’s stricken face as she’d been dragged from this very Hall, and remember the love and the desperation she’d seen there. She blinked back tears. Zared had ridden out two days ago. She’d heard the clatter of hooves early in the morning, but had not been able to see him from her window. He had gone, and they had not even been able to say goodbye.
Not personally that is, although one of the Lake Guard, somewhat unusually, Leagh thought, had relayed messages between them. “He will fight for you,” the birdman had told her. “Never fear.”
There was a movement in the Hall, and Leagh refocused her eyes on the present.
Caelum had signalled, and now a Strike Force member carried forth a plain wooden chair and placed it in a clear space before the dais.