In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“We cannot see into the future,” Helmut Villam had once observed. That was a mercy granted to humankind, who would otherwise drown in a sea of unwanted knowledge filled with reversals, tragedies, unhoped-for rescues, and the endless contradictions of life.

He remembered the passion in his own voice that day by the river, below the palace of Werlida, when he had spoken so decidedly to his father the king. “I don’t want to be king. Or heir. Or emperor.”

And now, of course, he was. King, and heir to an empire he had never desired.

“What of your Aostan allies?” he asked his cousin Liutgard, nodding also at the old duke, Burchard.

The duchess shrugged, wiping ash off her lips with the back of one filthy hand. Her hair was streaked with ash, tangled and dirty; impossible to tell how fair it was under all the soot. “They fled west along the coast instead of following us,” she said. “Their allegiance was to Adelheid, not to Henry. There are yet stragglers, and a few wandering confused among our troops. For the rest, those who live, I believe they will all fly home.”

With a sigh, Sanglant rubbed his stinging eyes. “Has there been any report of the griffins?” he asked those standing nearest to him. Clustered behind Hathui were a dozen Eagles rescued from Henry’s train.

In truth he needed no answer. If the gale had not killed the griffins outright, then it had surely blasted them far away. It seemed impossible for any creature in the air to have survived the storm.

Ai, God, he was so weary that he had begun to hear things, a strange rushing roar that nagged at his hearing until even the folk surrounding him heard as well. To the south, shouts of alarm rang out above the snap and crash of branches as though a second wind raked through the forest. Scouts left behind to stand sentry over the road tumbled into the clearing.

“The ocean! The ocean has risen!”

He gestured to Lewenhardt and Captain Fulk. Together they ran along the road into the trees, and before they had gone far they saw an astonishing sight. Water surged inland through the trees, losing depth quickly until it lapped and sighed around their boots. As they stared, it drained away, most into the ground but in a few stubborn rivulets back toward the sea, dragging twigs and leaves in its undertow. Sanglant knelt and brushed his fingers through a remnant pool as the roar of the receding waters faded. He touched the moisture to his lips, spat out the salty brine.

“This is seawater.”

“That is not possible,” said Captain Fulk. “No tide can rise so high. It’s a league at least—more!—from here to the ocean!”

“Bring Fest. I’ll need an escort of a hundred men. If there’s any hope of capturing Queen Adelheid, we must seek her now. Bring Duke Burchard, since he knows the town and its defenses. Tell Duchess Liutgard to make an account of what provisions are left us, tend to the wounded, and ready the men for a long march. Bury the dead before they begin to rot.”

“Even the emperor, Your Majesty?”

“No. We must prepare Henry for the journey north. See that his heart is removed from his body, and his flesh boiled until there is nothing left but bones.”

The road through the forest had survived the conflagration, but it was muddy and streaked with debris. The wind gusted erratically and after one man was knocked out cold by a falling branch, they watched for limbs with each flurry. The trees were blackened and burned on the side facing the southeast. Desiccated leaves filtered down with the ever present ash fall. Light rose as the morning progressed, but the day remained hazy and dim and the heavens had a glowering sheen. Every sound was muffled by the constant hiss of ash and the layer of soot and mud blanketing the damp ground. It was cool, yet clammy, and the long walk exhausted them and their horses alike.

“Is it the end of the world, my lord pr—Your Majesty?” Lewenhardt whispered.

“If it is the end, then why are we not dead? Nay, Lewenhardt, it is as it seems. A terrible cataclysm has overtaken us. We may yet survive if we keep our wits about us, and if we hold together.”

Duke Burchard drew the Circle of Unity at his chest, but said nothing. The old man seemed too stunned to speak. He was not alone in this. For every soldier who exclaimed out loud at the scorched forest and the marks of the recent flood there were four or five who gaped at the devastation as though they had, indeed, lost their wits.

“I dislike this, Your Majesty,” said Fulk. “What if the sea returns?”

“We must see. Besides Queen Adelheid, we must seek out those who survived and hid until daybreak. Liutgard said many of the Aostans marched west along the coast. What of them?”

Pools of salty water filled the ruts in the road, and a gloomy vista awaited them when at last they emerged from the trees and gazed through the swirling ash that obscured the bay of Estriana, half a league away. The plain looked strangely scumbled, strewn with debris. He could not mark the field where the battle had been fought or the line of their retreat because branches and corpses and planks from wagons and all manner of flotsam lay tumbled everywhere. He saw no life at all in the distant town.

“You are sure?” he asked Duke Burchard. “You left Queen Adelheid behind in Estriana?”

The old man’s voice was more like a croak. “So I did, Your Majesty. She held a reserve behind the walls in case of disaster. It was already agreed that she would remain in the tower rather than sortie out. She is a strategist, Your Majesty, not a soldier.”

“So she is,” agreed Sanglant, “if she yet lives. I walked right into the ambush she and Henry laid between them.”

Burchard shook his head impatiently. “We saw well enough what trap Henry fell into. The daimone with which Presbyter Hugh ensorcelled him spoke his words and moved his limbs according to the presbyter’s command. Henry did not speak. That plan was the queen’s alone.”

“She is a formidable opponent, then. What do we do with her now?”

Staring across the plain toward the Middle Sea, Burchard wept softly. “Perhaps bury her?”

The pall of dust hid the waters, which seemed, impossibly, at low tide, drawn far back across tidal flats.

“Ai, God!” cried Lewenhardt, who possessed the sharpest gaze among them, able to pierce the haze. “Look!”