16. Into Darkness

Her hand was cold, numb. Taking her index finger she tapped the side of her hand, near the palm. Nothing. She flexed her hands, which reluctantly obeyed, soft ribbons of colour dimly showing life between the cold margins under her perplexed gaze.

"What will your hands be?" Angelica said quietly, repeating Mother's words so recent yet forever ago. "Will you craft, will you draw great works to be built, will you bathe them in blood?"

She put her hands to her mouth, biting gently. Her hands did not change colour, the indentations of teeth lingering. Lady Violet looked intently at her finger, then opened her mouth again for another bite.

Angelica reached out and took Violet's hands in hers. "You might want those some day" she said quietly.

"Why?" Violet replied calmly "There is no tomorrow for me."

"Your hands are almost frozen." Angelica replied without joining Violet in her darkness. "Have you been fishing or something?"

"No, the rain." Violet shrugged upwards, where all knew she had been for hours, even after the icy rain sliced across the afternoon sky on a squall.

It should have been a joyous relief, fresh drinkable water ... yet Angelica had not laughed with the others, or washed under the excess sluicing off the sails once their water barrels were full. She knew what was to come, what must be. Violet knew too.

"Erm" Violet replied calmly "you do know that your hands are colder than mine?"

Angelica took her hand back, trying to clasp it closed "oh. Ummmm..." she put her hand to her face, curious that it felt dull, as a masquerade ball mask beneath her fingers.

Violet's face was a study in conflict, emotions playing behind a sheen of light frost. The wind sang past them, a low contralto accompanying Angelica's silence.

"My Ladies!" the voice again intruded from below "You must come down! For pity's sake, permit us to aid you!"

Violet looked down, the faces in the gloom. "Strangers all, any number of whom might be with him." she said softly, words safely overboard "Who to trust? Only you, sweet summer child, free of the trumpets of war or the bells for the fallen. I met you first, would you still be my friend if he had filled your ears with his stories? Will you run to him when you meet again?"

"My Lady!" a voice yelled over the wind from much closer "Forgive me but..."

Violet watched detached as the shape beside her vanished, lost into the gloom. She felt weightless, free. She put her arms out like a bird, flying in the mist as she too went down, grey swirling past her eyes.

"Get them below!" someone called.

"No, too quick, get them under cloaks" a woman's voice countermanded decisively "One on each side, warm them slowly."

Fael. That was Fael. Angelica thought absently. Why is she in my private garden? I was playing chess with Vye, and had shared a bottle of fine white wine, which Olga had not even cut with water. It was so nice to have a cousin to lead her astray! But she was cold ... it was a long summer when Vye visited, not winter, did someone play a trick on them?

"M'Lady?".

Soft, warm, the scent of lavender. Olga.

"Hello mischief, you're back." Olga replied quietly "Why did you stay aloft? you could see the weather coming in."

"Vye" Angelica croaked quietly "she ..."

"Shush now, rest little one." Olga clipped off the conversation "Some things are better kept for later" she urged, in case her only mostly frozen charge missed it.

Someone smelt of rust and oil both, heavy linen and leather... chain mail, ... but also of spring. How could she smell of spring, even in a storm? Liva. Had to be.

Angelica began looking about her, fighting against her kindly captors to stand.

"Lady Violet is fine" Liva said quietly from beside her, correctly guessing the cause of her concern "she is with Fael and Marcus, warming up."

The young noble sagged back against her friends, and began to gently weep for the fond summers lost forever, tears washed away by the relentless rain.

--// @->---- //--

"Talk to me" Fael encouraged earnestly to Lady Violet.

"You would never understand" Violet replied in kind.

"Try me" Fael replied "M'Lady."

"No, you might be with them."

"I am certainly not, I am with my Lady, from before I was born to when I return to the Records, I am hers as she is mine."

"Does that not trouble you, that you have never had a choice?" Violet flicked back the question without hesitation, probing for a motive.

"No, my family has served as Healers to her Family for longer than time remembered. We are allowed any belief, any family, and have wanted for nothing. The only absolute is loyalty, and that I freely confirmed when I took my oaths."

"A good speech" Violet replied "and yet ..." she paused, inspecting carefully "I can see no lie in your eyes."

Fael smiled "I am hers, and by extension, yours."

"Be careful what you say" Violet replied absently, looking out into the night "some might take that a little too literally."

"Thank you M'Lady" Fael replied, struggling to keep the fear in her face masked "I am hers, and by virtue of My Lady's hospitality, I stand ready to assist you as far as able, M'Lady."

"See?" Violet replied "You're getting it." she turned to look back at Fael and smiled sweetly. "No."

"But M 'Lady, with respect, you do not seem ..."

Violet tilted her head and lifted one eyebrow.

"M'Lady" Fael courtseyed low, knowing she was dismissed. "Know that my offer stands."

Lady Olga approached as Fael withdrew "She's not that bad to talk with, you know."

"I'd rather fight than talk" Violet replied.

"Marcus is good for that, if you prefer?" Olga replied "And he's hard to break, which useful."

"Are you not a little familiar?" Violet said with ice in her voice.

"You know me, as I you." Olga replied evenly "M'Lady" she appended, just in case.

"Indeed, once upon dream we were all friends, with you stealing us wine from the cellars to drink amidst flowers and sunlight." Violet replied "But now ... now. What am I now? Alone, no way home, and surrounded by enemies."

"But also surrounded by friends" Olga replied evenly. "We will shortly indeed be in the company of enemies. But I think not on this ship, not now."

Violet lowered her face, her hands upon her temples. "But I can feel them. They come closer, whenever I shut my eyes, they move softly closer to me. I see their signs and messages, they are weaving a web about me."

Olga looked up to Fael, entirely lost at what to say in reply. Fael's eyes went wide, frozen in thought.

Angelica stood from where she had been laying, allowing the cloak to fall away. She stepped in front of Violet, and reached down her hand. "I'm afraid" she said simply, the truth of the words rolling across the deck with the gentle rain. "Stand by me, and let us face whatever comes together."

"You know you should never say that, little one? It does not suit your position." Violet lifted her head, then her hand to take Angelica's. She stood effortlessly, and moved gracefully beside Angelica. "Together then."

"We are going to the darkness" Angelica said quietly "we will have no light but that we take with us."

"In that case" Violet laughed as she spun around to face Angelica "it's fortunate indeed we shall be taking fire with us." She giggled "Fire burns webs. You do have fire, right?"

"Erm..." Angelica replied awkwardly "... maybe?"

"Close enough" Violet smiled, and skipped off down the wet deck into the darkness.

"You never said what or whom you are afraid of" Olga whispered quietly as she stepped beside Angelica and covered her shoulders beneath her own cloak.

"Or for whom." Angelica added softly.

--// @->---- //--

"You have GOT to be joking! Are you insane?" Maygus glared at Angelica, Fael hiding behind the hulking angry Duke.

Angelica rewarded him with a wry smile and waited for him to gather his breath for the next onslaught, the morning light carefully behind her and not in her eyes as she held her sword in a high guard.

"Just one, now two. They are pure evil! I ought to slay them, right now."

"How?" Angelica said quietly.

Maygus tilted his sword, waggling it like a finger "I'll ... I'll ..." he was slowly turning redder "I'll throw them over the side. They can bloody well walk home for all I care!" he fumed.

"Look, give me somewhere else, anywhere else, and we'll sail there." Angelica said softly "but we can't stay at sea forever and you know it. This is simply mathematics, if our fodder, food and water is finite, we all end. Replenishing the water does not fix the other two."

"Well you might not" Maygus retorted angrily.

Angelica stepped forward and slapped the Duke, hard, across the face. "You would certainly not" she replied coldly.

Maygus stood stock still, then began to shake. Slowly, his shoulders began to roll forward and back, until he was proper roaring with laughter.

"There she is" he fell to one knee "welcome back, My Lady." he said formally, all trace of hostility or deceit vanquished from his voice. "To survive this, you must set aside all you learnt from your Mother. You must follow you Father's ways of war."

"But ..." she began.

"No, I too know the old cavalryman. Did you think the Dukes took no interest in you, even before your brother was lost to us, Qin rest him?"

Angelica bowed her head in acknowledgment of the truth it.

"I know you are well taught" Marcus continued "but theory is very different to reality."

"Quite so" Angelica replied "however the 'but' remains. To win this, we do not need Father's ways of war."

Marcus looked confused, but definitely interested.

"We need Mother's."

"Remind me again?"

"No amount of training can overcome the foe we face in their own lands. We cannot afford the losses anyway. We must fight a shadow war."

"Oh now this is going to be interesting. Do tell." As he spoke, he swung hard at her unprotected flank, smiling as her blade flicked into a passable parry.

"And here I was" she paused as she countered another thrust "thinking we were having a proper conversation!"

"We are, M'Lady" Maygus replied playfully "But the enemy will attack when you are most tired and least prepared. This is just to remind you to get more sleep."

He grinned as she spun away out of his range, Liva and Antaryon stepping in to cover her withdrawal as the deadly serious dance continued, naked steel clashing on steel and shield.

"So just to be clear" Maygus said between grunts as he swatted away Antaryon's attacks. "We're going to go into a trap, years in the weaving, and we can't even stand and fight, because there is no chance we can ever win in battle. And the trap is in a place we've never been, know only stories about, and can never leave."

"Pretty much" Angelica replied brightly.

"So the plan is what exactly?"

"We'll make it up as we go."

"I love it." Maygus replied, huge grin on his face.

"Again!" he commanded to all the guards kneeling on the deck where they had 'died'.

"No" a gentle voice replied, the guards melting back to the edges of the deck where the children watched in awe mixed with fear. Lady Violet had donned King Dragor's armour, and taken up his sword.

"All of you, with him. I need to get used to this armour." Lady Violet replied brightly.

"You heard her! Move!" Liva commanded, she herself falling in beside Maygus.

Lady Violet drew the tip of the scimitar across the deck, bought it up in front of her nose in salute, smiled, then shimmering in the flaming golden morning light, she charged.