The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston Page A

families in Rachiswater and Wrought are in mourning. The whole kingdom shares their grief, which will long endure.
    Staniel has not dismissed the survivors, and has also summoned the rest of the Awian fyrd to protect him in Rachiswater, an unpopular decision as it leaves Calamus Road and the northwest of the country unguarded.
    J ANT S HIRA 9/9/15

    Shit. No wonder Lightning wants to see me. “It’s impressive,” I said. “I wrote for the Standard without knowing about the fight.”
    Tern gave me an antique look. “You owe me one.”
    I looked in a couple of other broadsheets that were lying on the floor among gory Insect dissection textbooks and my chemistry notes. The Moren Times just listed what courtiers wore to the coronation, and had good tits on page three, but the Moderate Intelligencer had this to say:
    Never before has a King raised a host solely to protect himself. We may ask why he has separated from the other manorships in Awia, and how will the smaller manors defend themselves against the Insects? It is the Castle’s role to shield Awia but how is it to accomplish this without troops? Why has the Castle not made an official statement? Is the Emperor supporting Staniel, who seems prepared to forsake Lowespass and Tanager? With some notable exceptions, the smaller manors are coming round to the view that Staniel should be deposed and replaced. We look again to the Circle of unusually silent immortals for advice on this issue, while Insects roaming south of the Wall destroy what’s left of our cattle and threaten our children.
    K ESTREL A LTERGATE 9/10/15

    “I’ve got to go,” I said to Tern. I had to find out what Staniel was trying to achieve.
    Tern nodded. “One day we’ll have more than a day together,” she said ruefully.
    “I’m sorry.” I snorted some more cat, thinking of it as a medicine to stall the onset of my sickness, although it would leave me restless. It’s a stupid delusion, I know, because what I call medicine is really the cause of my sickness.
    The stifling world outside was hotter than I had thought possible. The sun was a silver coin burning through a white overcast sky, trapping heat beneath the clouds and suffocating the Castle. I stripped off extra clothes as I walked, and by the time I reached Lightning’s rooms I was carrying my crowskin coat, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and was verging on indecency.
    I have had two hundred years to become familiar with this wing of the Castle, but its grandeur would make anybody feel uncomfortable. I feel I shouldn’t be here, but the building also seems gracious—as if the people who do belong here will smile and allow me a little time. In a corridor deep inside the Palace interior of the Castle, black and white tiles were laid to appear three-dimensional. The sides of the Neo-Tealean corridor were open white arches, and I go through one, across an immaculate lawn, into a white building with long, many-paned sash windows.
    The brickwork on the lower stories was emphasized, with plain walls above. The windows were set so closely together that the wall was mostly glass, with dark blue velvet drapes. From inside one can see every centimeter of the formal gardens, the square lawns and conical cypress.
    Music wandered out onto the lawns. I followed it like a stream to its source, thinking that it was a very pretty harpsichord duet, but when I got to Lightning’s rooms I discovered that it was just Swallow, who had found a way of playing both parts of the duet at once.
    Lightning was sitting in a chair as near to her as etiquette allowed, with a distant smile on his face, pleased because Swallow was now not only in the same room as him, but she was thrilled with his latest present, a gilt and blue cloisonné harpsichord, with scroll legs, keys of gold, and lapis lazuli.
    The furniture matched, but with a few modern New Art pieces of enamel and silver. Lightning has always been a collector, and refused to stop although he bemoaned the fact