Gates of Ruin (Magelands Eternal Siege, #6) Christopher Mitchell (classic reads .txt) 📖

may decide to move into the City at once, and start extracting every ounce of salve they can find. In doing so, they would need to eliminate Yendra, which would save me the trouble of having to do it.’ She crinkled her brow. ‘Or, we stay here a while, and see what transpires.’

Aila watched her. Her right arm was hidden beneath the folds of her robes, but must be close to being fully healed. Amalia caught her glance and smiled.

‘If we do go back to the City,’ the former God-Queen said, ‘we can make sure your baby is welcomed into the family. Have you yet sensed whether or not the child is immortal?’

‘What?’ said Kelsey. ‘I thought the children of demigods turned out mortal.’

‘Most do,’ said Amalia, ‘but Corthie Holdfast is powerful, and his abilities may well have tipped the scales. If, indeed, he is the father?’ She laughed at Aila’s expression. ‘We’ll have to take your word for it, I suppose, dearest granddaughter.’

Aila walked across the stone floor and sat on the bed pallet. She thought back to the two centuries she had spent under house arrest, and tried to remember what had got her through it. She would need to be patient, just as Kelsey had said, but her stomach was in turmoil, and her chest ached with anxiety. She closed her eyes as a tidal wave of emotion swept over her. Since leaving the Falls of Iron, no, since Irno’s death, her life had been cast into a wild storm, battered by events over which she had exerted no control.

‘Well?’ said Amalia. ‘Have you sensed it?’

Aila shook her head.

‘Let me know if you do. If the child turns out to be a demigod then you may, at long last, have proved to be of some worth to me. Imagine a little Corthie by my side as we stroll through Maeladh Palace; he could fill the void left by Marcus and Kano.’

Kelsey coughed.

‘Yes?’ said Amalia.

‘Get out of our cell; leave us alone, you creepy old hag.’

The former God-Queen’s eyes lit up. ‘You think you can speak to me like that?’

‘Aye. What are you going to do, kill me?’

‘Oh, I daresay your blocking powers would still work if I had your thumbs removed; or, indeed, your eyes or your tongue. I shall keep you alive, of course, but in what state, who can tell?’

She smirked at Kelsey, then walked from the room. Behind her, Maxin closed and locked the door, leaving the prisoners alone in the shadows and gloom of the cell. Kelsey crouched by Aila.

‘Pregnant? Wow. I didn’t see that coming.’

Aila laughed, but it was joyless.

‘Does Corthie know?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I told him in Yoneath.’

‘I hope he got away alright.’

‘You know what he’s like; he thinks it’s his destiny to defeat the Ascendants. Unless Blackrose carried him off, I doubt anything would have made him leave that cavern.’

‘If he knew where we were, and had a way to get here, then he’d leave.’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t know. And now… now we’re stuck here, with my insane grandmother holding us captive.’

‘We’ll get out. In some ways, this changes nothing; we just have to play along and be patient. I don’t care about stealing the Quadrant from her; she’s welcome to it if she uses it to bugger off.’

‘Say we do manage to get out; then what? Where would we go?’

‘Corthie and Van will be looking for us; we have to hold on to that thought. They’ll never find us here, so we’ll have to go to them. I don’t know where, exactly, but south for a start.’

Aila nodded, keeping her eyes on the stone floor. Her initial annoyance with Kelsey had passed, and she was glad that the young Holdfast woman had remained positive. Aila’s thoughts, in contrast, were dark and bleak, and she felt as trapped as she had in the City.

‘What Amalia was saying,’ Kelsey went on; ‘about the possibility that your child might be immortal; was that true?’

‘I don’t know. No quarter-god in the City was immortal, but no mortals there have any powers. Many quarter-gods had some sort of a power, a vestige from their demigod parent, but none that I know of had self-healing at a level that would allow them to live forever. But I think Amalia was picking up on something, something I can feel myself. I didn’t want to admit it in front of her, but I have a suspicion she might be right.’

‘What do you mean? Can you sense it?’

‘I think, maybe; I don’t know. Sometimes, it feels as though there’s another self-healing power working within me, but I might be wrong. True or not, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the baby away from Amalia.’

Kelsey’s eyes widened. ‘Wow. Corthie might have fathered a god.’ She chuckled. ‘He probably won’t be surprised; after all, he already thinks he is one.’

Chapter 2

The Noose

A lea Tanton, Tordue, Western Khatanax – 17th Tuminch 5252

Leksandr raised his hand, and the trapdoors under the row of condemned prisoners opened. Their bodies fell a few feet, then jerked on the nooses with a sickening noise. Feet spasmed and twitched, while damp patches spread across the lower parts of their clothes as they swung from the line of gallows, each corpse silhouetted by the bright sunshine striking the rear yard of the Governor’s residence.

‘That’s the last of them,’ said Arete; ‘the basement of the residence is now clear.’

Leksandr nodded. ‘And the final tally?’

‘Out of the three and a half thousand members of the merchant class arrested by Lord Renko, just over seven hundred have been executed, while another eight hundred died of mistreatment or disease. The remainder have been returned to their homes.’

‘To go straight back to work, I hope? Thanks to Renko’s misguided policy, the city is teetering between starvation and insurrection. His actions brought the economy to its knees.’

Arete shrugged. ‘They have been ordered to resume work immediately, but many are complaining of exhaustion and sickness. On the other hand, perhaps Alea Tanton