Aurora (32 page)

This is what speed feels like! This is what running is!

Never in her life has Candle moved so fast. Never has she needed to; there has always been a slave to run for her and do whatever she asked.

But the glass walls of the palace are full of flames and no one has answered her cries. All the guards and slaves have vanished.
Where are Broom and Clay? Where is Tuck?
The rooms and corridors are empty.

Candle runs through the maze of the palace until she is out of breath. Adrenalin deadens the pain of her maimed fingers. She pauses, heart drumming hard as she stares at the flames that seem to blaze through the walls. Surely the palace will melt! She touches the glass but it’s cold and hard. The fire is outside. She is safe. But where has everyone gone?

‘Broom! Tuck?’

She stares down empty glass corridors, feeling blank. And annoyed. Annoyance burns into anger. She is the First Lady of Ilira, the wife of the Pontifix. The brutality of her husband is something she cannot yet see a way around, but how dare everyone else forget about her?

But of course they have not. Here they come. She listens to the tramp of heavy feet in the corridors.

‘What’s happening?’ Candle demands of the guards who rush towards her. One seizes her roughly by the arm. Aghast, she tries to shake him off – and freezes as he pulls his cutlass. The blade glistens as he points it at her throat. She sees the emblem of the Vulture’s claw on the guard’s helmet, and screams.

A mass of invading guards rush past and Candle sees they all wear the Vulture’s claw.

‘Put your cutlass away!’ bellows a voice. ‘That’s Rodenglaw’s daughter, fool!’

The guard drops Candle’s arm with a stricken look. He gives a sharp little bow and runs off.

A burly figure with a red, weathered face that Candle knows from her childhood, the owner of the bellowing voice, takes off his helmet, grabs her hand and plants a rough, wet kiss on it.

‘Strozzi!’ Candle is dizzy with relief.

Strozzi, the long-trusted captain of Rodenglaw’s fleet, gives her a smile that steadies her heart. Candle throws her arms around the neck of the fatherly figure who always brought her tales of his adventures in the Arctic seas where he would famously outwit pirate fleets and storms, along with tasty treats and trinkets for her from the port cities he sailed to in her father’s ships. Strozzi could even jolly Rodenglaw out of his dark moods with reports of lucrative trade deals struck on his master’s behalf.

‘The very lady I was searching for!’ The burly sea captain winks at her, a shrewd look in his eye.

‘Strozzi, what’s happening?’

‘Your husband lies dead on the harbour,’ cries the wily captain, never one to waste money or words. ‘Struck down by the Vulture’s claw – as I will be if I don’t keep my wits about me, and you too.

Candle gasps.

‘Now don’t panic, and don’t tell me it was love at first sight,’ says Strozzi. ‘Tuck Culpy was as blind and dangerous as I am fat and you were hardly married a minute. So no tears. Listen to me, Candle. I have a deal to put to you and no time to waste.’

‘A deal? Now?’

‘The deal of a lifetime . . . No looting! Put it all back! Every last bit!’ he bellows to a bustle of guards trying to sneak past with Tuck’s treasured relics under their cloaks. ‘That is the property of your new sea commander. Quick, now!’ he urges Candle. ‘Let’s get you ready for your big moment.’

He stares at the bandaged stump of the hand he was about to seize.

‘Just as well he’s already dead, my little Candle,’ he murmurs after a pause.

Candle shoves the bloodstained stump behind her back.

‘What big moment?’ she demands.

If Strozzi’s deal is to marry her off to whoever is the new commander of the combined fleets of her dead father and husband, then she will fight against it with her teeth and the nails of her one good hand. She will never again be at the mercy of a power-crazed brute.

‘Who is the new commander?’

‘Commander Candle, of course,’ says Strozzi. His clever eyes twinkle at the stunned girl. ‘Why not? Who better than you? These are your father’s guards, this is your husband’s palace. I am your most loyal sea captain, always at your command. Our lives hang in the balance, Candle. Yours too. Ilira’s Sea Lords have scuttled into the shadows like sea rats. Who else can unite us and save us from the Vulture’s claw?’

THE HEART OF A WOLF

The burning masts of Tuck’s ship fall with a tremendous groan. The ship gives a
boom
as the flames consume the
Great Skua.
Mara plunges off the rocks and swims through cold waves towards the inferno, choking on seawater as she shoutes for Lily until her throat is raw. Her eyes stream. She can barely see through the thick smoke and the litter of burning debris on the waves.

Did Lily jump into the sea and escape the falling masts? Or was she topped in the blaze?

Panic screams through her, propelling her towards the sea of flame. Mara’s heart feels ready to burst when she spots Wing’s wolfskin, swimming towards her.

Alone. Without Lily.

Don’t let her be gone,
she prays.
I couldn’t bear that.

The wolfskin grabs her. But it’s not Wing. She hears the ragged, sobbing breaths inside and knows the sound. She’d recognize her own child’s cry from a million others.

Mara catches the wretched bundle that is Lily. Clasping her with one arm, Mara struggles to swim back through the seething sea. But the relief of finding Lily alive gives her the strength to steer them both back towards the harbour where dark figures are waiting to haul them on to the rocks.

Shivering, she and Lily cling together as the
Great Skua
gives another monstrous groan as it breaks apart upon the dark sea.

‘Wing found me!’ gasps Lily. ‘He threw his wolfskin over me then the fire caught him. Oh, where is he?’

Mara looks out at the fire-strewn waves. She looks along the harbour rocks. Lily screams his name again and again but there is no sign of Wing.

‘I thought he was dead and now he really is,’ Lily sobs. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, so sorry. I never meant all this to happen . . .’

Mara can only hug her daughter. ‘He saved me once and now he’s saved you. Don’t give up on him yet. Wing has the heart of a wolf.’

Bodies are being heaved from the sea. Lily and Mara rush to see if Wing is among them. Some are alive, burned, others have drowned; all wear the silver crescent emblem of Tuck’s guards.

Lily sees Tuck’s body. ‘His heart was ice.’

A ragged heap is dumped on the flat harbour rocks. Some grotesque, wizened creature. Lily pulls away from Mara with a cry and throws herself down beside the poor, drowned thing. Gently, she cradles the head and Mara sees that one side is burned, horribly, the hair razed away. But the unravaged half of the face is Wing’s.

Lily puts her ear to Wing’s chest and listens.

‘He’s alive!’

She pulls the wolfskin from her shoulders and lays it over Wing, placing the wolf head tenderly beside his. Mara hears her daughter beseech the spirit of the dead creature to help Wing.

She pulls herself together. There are far more practical things than wolf spirits. Mara takes the flask of milk from her backpack that curdled days ago. Ever so gently, she pours the soothing curd on to the burns. Wing squirms in agony but makes not a sound. Years with the wolves have taught him the contained energy of silence, even at the point of death. Now Mara tips a small flask of pine wine, brought to clean wounds, to Wing’s mouth to numb his pain. Lily soothes him, murmuring in wolf-tongue, until Wing relaxes into a daze of alcohol and pain.

‘All that matters is that he’s
alive
,’ Lily declares.

There are a thousand things to say but it can all wait. As the last of the
Great Skua
breaks up in a series of fiery cracks and booms, Mara can only agree with a shuddered ‘
yes
’.

THE PARADISE DEAL

At first Mara thinks the girl on the steps of the palace is on fire. But it’s a dazzling necklace, reflecting the last sparks of the burning ship, that seems to flame and sizzle upon her chest.

The small, sturdy girl walks down the rocky steps of the palace, wrapped in a white fur cloak. On the harbour, Oreon watches her approach with a look of relief. Just a girl, says his face. The girl stops at Tuck’s lifeless body with an unreadable expression. Then she turns to Oreon with a hard, insolent look.

The look throws Oreon. He was, thinks Mara, expecting tears.

‘I am sorry,’ he begins.

‘Not as sorry as you will be,’ says the girl, ‘when your brother hears how you bungled his plans. Captain Strozzi,
my
captain, has told me everything.’

‘You are the new bride of the Pontifix?’ asks Oreon, in the manner of someone suddenly struggling to find his bearings.

‘I am Tartoq Rodenglaw, known as Candle, the Light of Ilira. These guards are my father’s men and women. This is my palace, my city, my land. I hold the reins of power in Ilira now my husband is dead. What’s your business here, gypsea?’

Oreon blinks, taken aback. Then he laughs.

Mara leaves Lily to tend to Wing and steps closer to the power tussle between the bemused gypsea scholar and Tuck’s unexpected young wife.

‘I am Oreon,’ says the gypsea grandly, ‘a
scholar
on a mission from my brother, the Vulture of the North. These guards have sworn allegiance to him. As you can see, many now wear the Vulture’s claw. Tuck’s guards – those still alive – will doubtless join us too.’

‘Ah, but what
I
see is that many haven’t swapped their emblems at all!’ Candle shakes her head as if Oreon has made a silly mistake. ‘Look closer. See how many still wear my father’s emblem, the
Rodenglaw
claw – which
is
similar, though somewhat smaller than the Vulture’s. But sharp and deadly, I promise you. Now they have no need to swap allegiance. They will not take second place in the Vulture’s fleet because I, Tartoq Rodenglaw, will take control of Ilira’s fleets with my loyal Captain Strozzi. And my men and women will continue to wear the Rodenglaw claw!’

Now Candle addresses the mass of guards gathered on the rocks who have turned from the burning ship to hear the commanding young woman in the antique fur and jewels.

‘My people have lived on this land since the White Age of ice and snow,’ she declares. ‘I am the daughter of Sea Lord Rodenglaw and my mother was a Hakan from Eagle Heights. My cloak,’ she grabs a handful of the heavy fur, ‘was made from the last white bear ever seen in Ilira, killed by my mother’s mother when she was hardly more than a girl.’ Candle puffs out her stout body. ‘And who knows if I am already carrying the heir of the Pontifix?’

All eyes fix on her round stomach. Candle’s eyes glint.

‘Guards of Ilira, we must not betray our ancestors or our children,’ Candle urges them. ‘Or ourselves. And that’s what we would do if we give the Vulture control of our land and ships. So, I will tell you of the plan Captain Strozzi has put to me. We will fight with the gypseas to defend the North from invaders from the sky cities who want to steal our land – but we will not live in the grip of the Vulture’s claw. All of Ilira can unite through me!’