“What about recompense to all the people who have been slaughtered by the Skraelings?” Axis shouted, not caring if his voice carried back to the Skraeling camp. “What about recompense to this land, this one here and now that we stand on, for the misery inflicted on it? What about recompense for —”
“Axis —”
“— all the Isembaardians who died. Godsdamn it, Isaiah! You abandoned Isembaard to its fate, too! This is a most unbecoming character trait of yours.”
Isaiah had paled, and now took a step back. “I don’t expect you to understand, but —”
“You are right. I don’t understand.”
With that, Axis turned on his heel and stalked away into the night.
After a moment, Isaiah walked on into his camp.
Inardle stood a long time in the darkness between the two camps, feeling keenly her isolation.
Stuck between two camps, as her entire life had been.
What Isaiah had revealed to her had shocked her to her very (River Angel) core. She had spent her entire life reviling her Skraeling heritage.
Now . . . did she have to admire it? Yearn for it? Or should she loathe it all the more for the foulness it had come from?
And were the Skraelings to decide her fate as well?
She did not know how to react, or what thoughts to muster. So she did the only thing she could actually think of doing.
She walked after Axis.
Inardle thought Axis might lash out at her in his anger, but he didn’t. He was sitting in the dark some twenty paces out from the border of Isaiah’s camp, and said nothing as Inardle came up and sat down beside him.
“I don’t know what to do, Axis,” she said.
He didn’t respond, and Inardle hadn’t really expected him to. She just needed to talk and it kept her that one step further from madness if she talked to an actual person rather than muttered away to herself.
“I cannot believe Isaiah acted as he did,” Axis said, and Inardle blinked in a little surprise.
“He bears a heavy burden of guilt, I think,” she said. “Not so much for the Skraelings, but for what they have done. If he had realised sooner . . . or thought to discover what had become of the River Angels once he had cursed them .”
“Is it going to ease his guilt by handing them the power to destroy even more? I can see no sense in the man!”
Inardle thought somewhat wryly that the only reason Axis talked to her so freely now was because he had (if perhaps only momentarily) found someone else to hate more than her.
“I don’t really hate you so much,” he said, and Inardle jumped, making Axis grin slightly.
“That thought was written all over your face,” he said. “I didn’t need to shuffle through your mind to realise it. I wouldn’t have tried to save you from the Lealfast if I had really hated you.”
“And I thank you for that,” she said. “If you hadn’t warned me, they would have killed me with their first volley of arrows. I was unaware and they had a clear shot. But . . . how did you know?”
Axis explained to her how he had used the vision of the eagle. “It was a trick from long ago in my past, using a friend from my past.”
He paused, listening. The Skraeling horde was close enough that they could hear the whisperings and mutterings coming from within their mass. It sounded like a hissing sea, undulating this way and that.
“They are surely having a fine time considering what Isaiah has shown and offered them,” Axis said.
“It would have come as a huge shock to them,” Inardle said. “What Isaiah showed them of their past, certainly, but also his unexpected offer, no conditions attached, to do whatever they choose. I don’t think anyone has offered the Skraelings that kind of option before. Everyone has used hate or fear or force to control them. Now a god has walked up to them and said, ‘Here is unlimited beauty and power and it is yours if you want it. No strings.” She gave a chuckle. “They’ll be sitting there trying to find the trap.”
“Is there one, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Inardle said. “I think Isaiah’s offer is genuine . . . but maybe there is a twist in its tail.”
“Which way will the Skraelings choose? Not the first option, surely. Not death.”
“Actually, they will yearn for that,” Inardle said. “Instant destruction, yes, but it also means instant peace. I think the Skraelings yearn for that.”
Axis wondered if Inardle also yearned for the blessed peace of death. “Is there a chance they will choose it?”
“No. They might yearn for it, but they will also be dazzled by the idea of beauty, of which they have never had any, and of power, which they have always craved. Axis, they are hateful creatures, given to treachery and slaughter, but they also know that. They hate themselves as much as does everyone else. Now they are being offered a way out.”
“So which of the other two options?”
“I think they will take the third. To restore themselves if they want. It is the most dangerous one for us, for you, for the Isembaardians, for Isaiah, for everyone save themselves. They will see power in that choice, and so they will take it.” She gave a small shrug. “Of course, then they will fight incessantly about whether or not they should take that step. Maybe Isaiah has outwitted them, after all.”
“Not the second option?” Axis said. “Isaiah immediately restoring them to River Angels?”
“No. I think they might see a trap there, or suspect a trap.”
“They are suspicious creatures.”
“As are you.” Inardle wished immediately she hadn’t said that, but Axis gave a small smile and a tilt of his head, merely acknowledging the remark.
“How do you feel, Inardle? About your River Angel heritage?”
She drew in a deep breath. “How do I feel? More confused than ever. I have always hated my Skraeling blood . . . but now I discover they were once magical, beautiful creatures. But . . . oh, what despicable creatures. Should I loathe my River Angel heritage even more than my Skraeling heritage?”
“It explains your mystery,” said Axis. “Your abilities. How you . . . frost.”
That was leading the conversation onto metaphorical ice and Inardle shifted nervously. “I hadn’t expected flattery from you back there,” she said, referring to Axis’ comments on the Lealfast’s beauties.
“I surprised myself.” Now he turned his head and smiled at her. “Perhaps, sitting there in front of that horde of hideous creatures, you didn’t seem so vile after all.”
Inardle felt even more uncomfortable. “More flattery.”
“Perhaps,” Axis said. He stretched away some of the stiffness and tiredness in his back. “Tomorrow will be interesting.”
“So it shall,” Inardle said.
They sat for a while in silence, then Inardle rose, said goodnight, and walked back to her assigned tent.
Chapter 24
The Outlands
Inardle walked into the tent, stopping in surprise when she saw the woman sitting on one of the two camp beds.
She hadn’t realised she would be sharing.
The woman was looking at her with some discomfort, which Inardle realised was probably because the woman was unfamiliar with winged creatures and didn’t quite know how to converse with one.
Or perhaps that she, too, was surprised at suddenly finding herself sharing.
“I am Inardle,” Inardle said.
“Hereward,” the woman said. “I am sorry . . . you are here because .?”
“Isaiah told me I could use this tent.”
“Oh.”
“He didn’t say anything?”
Hereward’s face twisted with bitterness. “He loathes me and suspects me of foulness.”
Inardle, who was still standing just inside the tent, not sure if she should progress further, just raised her eyebrows.
“He suspects I harbour the One,” Hereward said. “He cannot make up his mind whether to kill me or not.”
“Oh,” said Inardle, not knowing what to say. Why had Isaiah put her in here? Stars, she’d rather sleep outside in the cold.
“I suppose you want to go, now,” Hereward said.
“I think perhaps —”
“I don’t harbour the One!” Hereward said. “Why does he believe it?”
“Why does he believe it?”
“Because the Skraelings insinuated it.”
Inardle risked a small smile. “Then perhaps he is a fool for believing the Skraelings before you. Look, Hereward, I am tired and I need to sleep. Do you mind if I rest on the spare bed?”
Hereward shook her head. “The guards let you in?”
Guards? Then Inardle remembered there had been a group of soldiers around a campfire close to the tent. Maybe they were, indeed, guarding it.
That thought made Inardle wonder anew at why Isaiah had put her in here.
“Yes,” she said.