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The Darkling had in his possession, carefully and lovingly curated over several centuries, an extensive collection of icons, miniatures and statuettes of the Sun Summoner, tiny idols to the promised light of the future. The favourite of the moment often rode with him, nestled safely in his breast pocket, until it had become too antique and fragile, at which point he would bring it back here and lay it to rest in a shroud of black velvet, and choose another to afford him whatever protection and comfort it was able. They’d had, he reflected, mixed success – on the one hand, he’d been struck, sliced, stabbed, bruised, burned, shot (and more besides) with every weapon and other device of human dispatchment that had ever been tried in a battlefield, a dark alley, or lonely highway; on the other hand, he was still here.
Very, very occasionally, he would touch a fingertip to one diminutive hand and whisper tender words, wondering whether merzost would be able to bridge them a connection through time.
Apparently not, or he just hadn’t got the knack of it, since Alina – darling little Alina, with her tangled black hair and her sad, hollowed eyes – hadn’t known him, hadn’t even known herself.
A row of little maidens; long, golden hair, skin rosy like the dawn, eyes bright and blue as the summer sky at noon. There was a little variation, here and there a tawny eye or a bronze tinted cheek, if the artist had been struck with a vision of uncommon daring, but not a dark head nor slanted gaze among them. Had he failed her, somehow, by allowing this to happen? He knew how eager the examiners could be when it came to blonde children, vying amongst themselves for the chance to be the one who discovered their future queen.
Which reminded him, he’d have to find out who had been sent to that hovel Keramzin that day – what, six or seven years back? They’d almost certainly still be alive, then, and he needed answers about that – needed to know whether the otkazat'sya had done something to his Alina, whether this Duke was involved in some plot against him. The Heartrenders had been satisfied that no one in Kribirsk had been lying, but was it possible they had been made pawns in a plot against him from a higher quarter? Wherever the unlucky ones were assigned, he’d have to ride out to them without notice, he decided, for if he summoned them here, they’d be sure to learn why they were wanted and start working on their excuses.
The assortment was, he knew, technically priceless, but now it seemed to him just so much kitsch. He dumped the lot in the fireplace, and went to find his Tailor.