Llewyn felt the words like a blow.‘No,’ he said, stepping into the field of her vision.Tears ran from the corners of her eyes.He shook his head and reached out to wick the tears away.He thought of the stone altar.The clearing in Nyth Fran.The Grey Lady’s voice, screaming behind his eyes.‘No, Siwan.Never say such a thing.’
Siwan leaned into his touch and sobbed.
‘I would not kill you, Siwan,’ Fola said.
‘But would it?’Siwan demanded, looking past Llewyn to Fola.‘Would it end?’
The sorceress slowly shook her head.‘The haunting as it is may end, but the raven fiend would not die with you, I’m sure.We would trade one horror for another—an ancient evil on the loose, with cause for a grudge againstanotherold power of the world.’
Llewyn’s anger burned.‘But if the raven fiend would die with her, you would consider it?’
‘Do I seem a cruel person to you, Llewyn?’Fola asked.When he did not answer, she slumped against the back of the bench, deflated.‘If you must think me selfish, then bear this in mind… I fully intend to return to the City with Siwan.Study of the powers within her will speed our understanding of magic and of the First Folk by years, if not centuries.So no, I don’t intend to drive a knife through her heart and pray the haunting ends as a result.’
Again, she leaned forward, now with her hands spread, palms up, to plead.‘But I do need your help, Siwan.Like it or not, you and the haunting are connected.These are old ghosts whose wrath ought to have burned out long ago.The crimes against them have been all but forgotten, the true history buried beneath a more pleasant legend.But, through the raven fiend, their pain resonates with yours, and that, it seems, gives them strength and draws them out.And maybe your pain resonates with theirs, and strengthens the fiend.Like two notes in harmony, each deepening the power of the other.’
‘How?’Siwan sobbed.‘I don’t know anything about kings or ancient betrayals.I’m a singer, and this all started when I was hardly more than a girl!’
Fola only shook her head.Afanan would have offered some explanation, even if only one composed of vague notions and gestures.An appeal to the mystery uniting the past and present, or a comment about how Siwan was always sensitive—had the makings of a sorceress, even as a little girl, even before the raven fiend.Fola was a poor replacement, Llewyn decided, despite her power and skill.
‘I wish I knew,’ Fola said.‘We’re far beyond my depth, here.Beyond anyone’s depth, really.But I have an idea.A way to end the haunting, I think, with your help.And, if I’m right, ending the haunting will weaken the fiend, too, and make you safe.Safer, at least.’
‘Do you know that for certain?’Llewyn demanded, feeling a sudden flowering of hope—he wanted to trample it, crush it before it caused even more pain.He would never forgive Fola if Siwan believed in her promise of salvation and that promise turned out to be no more than another glamour.The possibility alone made him want to stamp out this conversation before its hidden cruelties took root.
Again, he had to restrain himself.Last time he had tried to wrest away control of Siwan’s life—no matter that his fears were well reasoned, the danger real—horror had torn through the festival grounds.
‘Nothing is certain,’ Fola said coldly.‘But when Siwan loses control and the raven fiend wrests it away, the haunting grows in strength.The two are connected, somehow.Destroying one half of that equation will at least make things safer, if not entirely safe.’
Siwan gathered herself.All this talk of her role in the kingdom’s horrors could not be easy to hear.Yet she set her jaw and pushed through.Strength she must have taken from Afanan, somehow, or perhaps from the mother none of them had known—Llewyn did not recognise it in himself, and it was certainly alien to the coward who had been her real father.
‘What do you need me to do?’Siwan said.
‘A haunting is born from a need,’ Fola said.‘Justice.Or forgiveness.Or to be remembered—loved.Needs that put an ache in any soul.The haunting will end when that need is met.’
‘And these ghosts,’ Llewyn cut in.‘What will meet their need?’
Fola drew her mouth into a line.‘They are demanding the eradication of Abal’s lineage.Were we to give it, Parwys would collapse into civil war and fall to Alberon, a puppet state of the Mortal Church.I’d rather stand in the way of their growing power, if I can.’
‘What do we care who sits on a throne?’Llewyn countered.
‘In this case, you should,’ Fola said.‘The first thing the Mortal Church will do is scour the kingdom of magic.Including folk such as yourselves.To say nothing of the death and suffering such a war and conquest would lead to.We might end one haunting only to plant the seeds of another.’
‘Gods, Damon’s plays are more straightforwardly told.’Siwan said, and Fola barked a laugh.
‘Indeed,’ Fola said.‘What I need from you, Siwan, is to help me untangle the knot.Help me negotiate with the dead and convince them to accept a simpler solution.One we may actually be able to achieve.’
‘Isn’t that what you just tried?’Llewyn pointed out, gesturing to the wind-blown ash that remained of her magic circle.
‘You are bound to them, somehow,’ Fola said, ignoring him and addressing Siwan.‘Or, the raven fiend is, at least, and you are bound to the raven fiend.If we find a way to manipulate that connection, I may be able to force the dead to forget their wrath for a moment and see reason.’
‘All right,’ Siwan said flatly.‘Assuming for the moment that my somehow controlling the raven fiend is even bloody possible, what else could you offer them that would satisfy?They’re demanding the eradication of a king’s bloodline!’
Fola laughed again, but her laugh deteriorated into a sigh.‘I had thought we might convince them to accept a rewriting of history.A true account of the kingdom’s founding, spread by troupes like yours.Not retribution, but a kind of justice—a reckoning with the crimes of the past.Too much to hope, though.The only thing that will satisfy them is the end of the kingdom.’
‘You cannot be serious,’ Llewyn said.‘How will you possibly deliver such a thing?’
‘More easily than the execution of every one of Abal’s descendants—of whom there could be thousands,’ Fola pointed out.‘Leave the logistical problems to me.I’m only asking for your promise to help, Siwan.Enraged and empowered as they are, the wraiths have no reason to deal with me.I will need you to bring them to the bargaining table.’
‘I feel I ought to remind you that I’ve no idea how to begin,’ Siwan said.
