Chapter 113. I Asked Them to Stop Ranking, and All Four Answered No in Perfect Harmony

Chapter 113: 113. I Asked Them to Stop Ranking, and All Four Answered No in Perfect Harmony

No one spoke.

The wind had died... Somewhere nearby, a fountain trickled softly in the stillness.

I looked at their faces. It was getting dark, and I could just make out the outlines of them, four women who had spent their lives hearing the same old story in four different houses.

And I realized that every single one of them had just heard a detail that fit.

’When the Gate falls.’

I looked at Magnara. She was staring at the ground, with her mouth tight and her face gone gray.

’Broken once.’

I didn’t like that one at all.

"Okay," I said, as brightly as I could. "That’s not ominous... I mean like that’s not ominous at all."

Nobody laughed.

It was Velora who broke the silence, and she did it in a way that I will never forget.

She’d been staring into the dusk with a calm, faraway expression. Then she picked up the jug of cider, poured a little into her cup, and said, in a perfectly level voice, as though she were asking someone to pass the salt:

"I will be immune as well... just like what Lady Elysandra said."

I swallowed my bread the wrong way.

There was a very long pause.

Sylvara’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth. Magnara went completely rigid.

Elsbeth did not so much as blink. She raised one eyebrow slowly and reached for the cheese.

I stared at Velora. She was calmly sipping her cider.

"What?" Magnara said at last, in a strangled voice.

"I said," Velora repeated, without turning her head, "that I will be immune as well."

"The bell was silent at my side, and it was silent at Elsbeth’s."

"You were both there... and I think both of you ignored that. It does not require elaboration."

"I thought," said Magnara, in the voice of a woman descending into a pit, "that the bell does not ring for those who are disciplined...?"

I put my face in my hands.

"It does not..." said Sylvara faintly, "...do that."

"But it was silent!"

"Yes."

Magnara’s voice was raised when she talked now. "For Velora...!? Duchess Velora Nightclaw?!"

"The commander of the finest cavalry in the north?!" Magnara swung her head toward me.

Her eyes were enormous. "With a human...?!"

Velora set down her cup.

She did it very slowly and very precisely. She reached across the grass, took hold of the hilt of her katana, drew it a hand’s breadth from its sheath, and drove the tip of the scabbard into the soil beside her knee.

It stood there, quivering.

"If either of you speak of this again," she said, in the coldest voice I have ever heard, "I will cut out your tongues."

Sylvara put both hands over her mouth. She had gone a bright, strained pink, and her shoulders were shaking so hard that her antlers trembled.

A faint, strangled, whistling sound escaped from between her fingers.

"I did not say anything!" said Magnara, throwing up her hands.

"You were about to."

"I was merely..."

"I know what you were about to do."

A group of Nightclaw riders who had been wandering past with an armload of firewood stopped dead in their tracks.

They stared. Then, in perfect unison, they turned on their heels and fled.

I heard the clatter of dropped logs, the sound of running footsteps, and a stifled wail that I believe belonged to the round-faced girl.

Velora closed her eyes.

She sat very still for a moment, with an expression of calm, ancient resignation, like a woman who has seen her fate and is prepared to meet it.

Then she opened them, picked up her cider, and took a long sip.

I’d like to claim that I kept the peace... I’d like to say that I rose to the occasion, with grace and dignity, and said something wise and calming.

What actually happened is that Elsbeth sighed.

It was a short, dry, distant sound, the sound of a woman who has been wondering for several minutes when to say something and has finally given up waiting.

She lowered her cup to the grass.

"I was first," she said.

Everyone turned.

"I do not wish to cause distress," Elsbeth said, in perfectly even tones. "But it is a matter of record, and I would like it to remain so..."

"In the cold forest... On the night we met."

"I was more dramatic," said Velora.

"I am the oldest," said Sylvara, mildly.

Oldest...? What does she mean by that...?

They all looked at Magnara.

She looked back at them. And the funny thing is that... She had a look on her face like a cornered bull.

She put down the cheese she’d been holding. And then she folded her arms.

She said, after a long, uncomfortable pause, "I have not yet decided whether I wish to compete in whatever this is."

"It is not a competition," said Elsbeth.

"It sounds like one."

"It is a ranking."

"That is a competition."

I held up both hands.

"Can we please stop ranking...?" I said.

They answered in perfect harmony, without so much as looking at each other.

"No."

I put my face in the grass.

I should say, for the record, that Elsbeth was not jealous. I don’t think she knew the meaning of the word.

She was merely thorough. She reached into the pocket of her coat, took out a tiny notebook and a stub of pencil, and began, with great solemnity, to write something down.

Velora narrowed her eyes. "What are you writing?"

"A record."

"Of what?"

"Of who was first."

"That is absurd."

"It is accurate."

"Alphabetical order?" I suggested from the grass.

"No," said all four of them.

"Chronological?"

"Already established," said Elsbeth.

"Dramatic," said Velora.

"Age," said Sylvara.

Huh...? Why did Sylvara...?

"I will go last," said Magnara.

Everyone stopped.

They looked at her. She was staring at her boots, and her ears were the color of beets.

"I am very good at being last."

There was a long, strange silence.

Nobody laughed.

Elsbeth slowly closed her notebook.

"Millie is in the list," I said, quietly.

They all looked at me.

I didn’t know why I’d said it. I think I’d need to.

In the whole ridiculous, shouting, tangled mess of the evening, I’d suddenly realized that there was an empty place in the circle and that none of us had mentioned it.

"Yes," said Velora, softly.

"She was before me," said Sylvara.

Wait a minute... why did Sylvara say that...? I remember as fast as I know... I only have sex with three Beastwomen.

"She was before all of us, in her way," said Elsbeth.

Magnara said nothing. She just nodded, once, very slowly.

And for a while, the five of us sat there in the gathering dark, in the garden of a woman who had waited a thousand years, and we looked up at a small bright moon, hanging low over the mountains.

...

The council that night was short.

It met in a side chamber off the great hall, around a plain round table, with a pair of lamps burning low.

Elysandra sat at the head.

Ysolde stood behind her, in her long gray coat, with her hands clasped at her back.

The four of us who held seats in the Covenant sat in a ring, and I was handed a chair at the end, between Sylvara and a very large potted fern.

The scouts had come back.

There were two of them, a pair of lean, dust-streaked riders who had ridden through the day and the night.

They stood before the table, hollow-eyed and stiff, and delivered their report in the flat monotone of people who have seen things they don’t want to describe.

The beacon towers along the southern road were dark, one after another, all the way to the foothills.

Two scouts sent before them had not come back. And the road was empty.

There was no smoke... There were no travelers...

There was only a great, strange silence.

"They did not go farther than the Third Tower," one of them said. "It felt, my lady, as though the land were holding its breath."

Elysandra thanked them and sent them to rest.

She did not say anything for some time. She sat with her hands folded on the table and her pearly horn glinting in the lamplight.

When she spoke, it was in the same soft, level tone as always.

"We will march at dawn," she said.

Magnara looked up.

"The full army of Elarune... You will lead it, Magnara." Elysandra met her gaze. "We go south, by the Redhorn road, to the Hearthfang pillar."

"We must arrive before the thirteenth night... If Redhorn has fallen, it lies directly on our road, and we will meet it there."

"I will go ahead," said Magnara. "With the fast riders."

"You will go with the army."

"My mother..."

"Will not be helped by your death." Elysandra’s voice was very gentle. "I understand... your intentions."

"But you are the Redhorn seat, and if you ride alone into the dark, you will be the first thing they take." She paused. "We go together... Or we do not go at all."

For a long moment, Magnara said nothing.

Then she bowed her head.

"Together," she said, thickly. "My lady..."

Elysandra turned her clear eyes to me.

"If you wish to meet my daughter," she said, "you must return with the moon."

"I do hope you still remember that."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Yes, ma’am."

She nodded. She did not say anything more about Aurelia, and I was grateful.

"If I might add something," said Ysolde, in her dry, flat voice, from behind the chair.

Everyone turned to look at her. She regarded the room with perfect composure.

"The pit remains available... should any of you disappoint me."

I laughed. And I couldn’t help it.

It was a short, startled bark, and she looked at me with her pale spotted eyes, and her mouth twitched.

It was the closest thing to a smile I’d seen her give.