The Ruin of Kings (A Chorus of Dragons)

by Jenn Lyons

  She edged away from him on the divan. “It’s not like that!”

  “Explain it to me then.”

  “If you were Ogenra, you could find out where the Octagon’s slave auctioneers sold my sister Talea. You could ask for a favor from your family, if they were noble. I thought you had to be Ogenra. You’re even wearing his colors…” She pointed to his chest.

  He touched the blue stone wrapped in gold around his neck. “His colors. I see.” He nodded, his expression hard. He wasn’t looking at her with tenderness anymore.

  “Kihrin, I like you—”

  “Really.”

  “I do! I didn’t know who else to turn to.”

  “Who you should have turned to was your new owner. Ola’s friends with half the people in this town, and she’s blackmailing the other half. She could have found what you needed from the Octagon. She could probably buy your sister too. But Ola would want something, and you didn’t want to owe her any more than you already do. Me? You thought you could rook me on the cheap.”

  Morea’s throat dried. “I don’t know Madam Ola like you do. I’ve never had a master who wouldn’t beat me for asking a favor like that. But you … you’re sweet, and you’re beautiful, and you stood up to those men … why do my motives have to be any more sinister than that?”

  His expression didn’t soften. “Because you’re selling something, and you thought I was eager to buy.”

  Morea tried to slap him, but he ducked away from her. He was quick.

  He ignored her attack and stood. “I’ll ask Ola. She used to be a slave. And she still knows people in the Upper Circle. Someone will know what happened to your sister.” There was no smile in Kihrin’s eyes. He no longer looked at her like a lovesick youth pining after his latest crush.

  Morea looked down at the floor, hating the way she felt, hating what she knew came next. “What would you expect in return?” she finally asked.

  He grabbed his father’s sallí cloak and tossed it over his arm.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I know this is the Capital, but not everything has to be a business deal.”

  Kihrin bowed, the graceful flourish of a trained entertainer, and left the room without a backward glance.

  * * *

  Kihrin stalked into the main room of the Shattered Veil Club, and scanned the room for his father.

  “So how’d it go, my little Rook?” Ola’s voice whispered from behind him.

  “Ugh. I don’t want to talk about it.” He wished she wouldn’t call him Rook at the Club. He didn’t call her Raven here, did he?

  The large woman raised an eyebrow. “That house last night didn’t have a guard out, did they?”

  He stared at her for a moment, blinking. She wasn’t talking about the rehearsal. She’d meant the Kazivar House burglary. “Oh! Um.… no. No, that went great. Better than great. Best yet.”

  The woman grinned and gave him a hug, ruffling his hair while she trapped him in her arms.

  “Ola—” Kihrin gave his standard protest, habitual by this point. He straightened himself up as Roarin led Surdyeh toward them. “I’ll tell you about it later. We need to talk.”

  Surdyeh reached them and said, “We must hurry. Landril is very wealthy; it would be ill if we were late to our first commission from the man.”

  Kihrin picked up the harp in its cloth case. “Sorry. I was delayed.”

  “I’m sure you were, little one.” Ola winked at him.

  Kihrin grinned back at her, shameless. “No, it’s not like that.” Then his expression grew serious. “I need to talk to you about that too.”

  The whorehouse madam tilted her head to the side. “One of the girls giving you grief? Which one?”

  “Morea,” Surdyeh said. “It couldn’t be anyone else.”

  “Pappa, I can answer for myself.”

  Madam Ola pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t be too hard on her, Bright-Eyes. That one’s still a bit of a mess from her last owner. Give me a few months to soften her up a bit. Why don’t you play with Jirya instead? She likes you.”

  Which was true. Jirya did like Kihrin, mostly because Kihrin used afternoons spent in Jirya’s crib as an opportunity to catch up on his sleep after all-night treks on rooftops. She’d also proven to be a fantastic alibi. Of course, the alibi was needed for his father Surdyeh, and not the Watchmen. Surdyeh may not have approved of what he erroneously thought Kihrin was doing with Ola’s slave girls, but he approved of burglary even less.

  “No, it’s not—”

  Surdyeh shook his head. “You spoil him, Ola. You’d think he was a royal prince from the slave girls you let him take his pick from.”

  It had been Surdyeh’s favorite argument of late, and it made Kihrin scowl even more than normal. Ola noticed, and raised an eyebrow. Kihrin pressed his lips together, shook his head, and said nothing.

  The madam stared at Kihrin for a moment.

  Then Ola laughed and chucked Surdyeh under the chin. “Men need to have good memories from their youth to keep them warm in their old age. Don’t try to tell me you don’t have some good ones, because I know better, old man. And you didn’t have no owner’s permission, either. Now get going, before you’re late.”

  She shoved them both out the door.

  9: SOULS AND STONES

  (Kihrin’s story)

  I woke to pain and the rhythmic seesaw of The Misery under sail. I had been jammed into one of the child-sized bunks, naked again, with Teraeth’s black robe draped over me as a makeshift blanket. The man himself leaned against the cabin wall, his expression sullen. His mother, Khaemezra, sat next to my bunk, pressing a wet cloth against my face.

  “Ow,” I said. Khaemezra had healed my wounds, but everything hurt—a sore, achy, pulled-muscle hurt.

  “You’ll be happy to know you’ll live,” Khaemezra said, sounding amused about the matter.

  “At least for now,” Teraeth said. “No telling what the future holds with your talent for getting into trouble.”

  “Right, because I asked for this.” I swung my feet out of bed and wrapped the robe around my middle, although it was a bit late for modesty. I attempted to ignore Teraeth and concentrated on his mother. “I should say thank you for saving me from that gaesh attack, but I have to go back to my favorite question: what do you people want from me?”

  She smiled. “A better question: how did you survive disobeying a gaesh when no one ever does?”

  I hesitated. “What? Wait, but I…” I cleared my throat. “I thought that was your doing?”

  Khaemezra shook her head. “Oh, no.”

  “Then how—” I put my hand to my throat. The necklace of star tear diamonds was missing, probably reclaimed when they had removed the robe. The Stone of Shackles, however, remained.

  She saw the gesture. “Yes, I suspect it was the stone too. It protects its wearer, although it doesn’t do much to mitigate pain. You might wish you were dead.” Khaemezra continued, “Juval was the one who gaeshed you, wasn’t he?”

  Yeah, I wasn’t going to fall for that twice. “Don’t be silly.”

  Teraeth frowned. “Then why—”

  Khaemezra held up a hand. My gaesh charm dangled from her fingers. “You may answer honestly, dear child. I’ve removed the previous prohibitions.”

  Teraeth must have given her the gaesh while I was unconscious.

  “Oh, well in that case, sure, Juval had someone summon up a demon and that’s who gaeshed me.” I waited for a second, but I didn’t seem inclined to go into convulsions, so I continued. “Juval was furious when he realized he’d been tricked into committing high crimes against the Quuros Empire. It’s not like they’d just smile and dismiss putting a Quuros prince in the rowing galley for a season as ‘just a misunderstanding.’ I convinced him that if he killed me, the priests of Thaena would just lead the Quuros navy to his sails even quicker. He figured ripping out my soul also solved the problem.”

  “Being gaeshed doesn’t rip out your soul,” Teraeth snapped.

>   “Oh, I’m sorry,” I replied. “Is that personal experience talking? You’ve been gaeshed? Or have you just gaeshed a whole lot of people? I bet it’s the latter one, huh?”

  “The Black Brotherhood doesn’t engage in slavery.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “The kind auctioneers back in Kishna-Farriga might beg to differ. Didn’t you have reserved seats?”

  “We buy vané slaves to free them, not to gaesh them,” he retorted.

  “Is that so? Is that what your mother here did with Miya? Freed her? And how do you finance an operation like that? Good intentions? Or do you have a couple dozen more star tears back home?”

  “No, but if you’d like to keep stealing them back, we could work something out.”

  “Quiet, both of you.” The old woman clucked her tongue. “Teraeth, go upstairs and ask the Captain how many days until we reach Zherias.”

  He glared at me a moment longer, his expression righteous. “We don’t sell slaves.”

  “Whatever you say, Master.”

  “Teraeth, go.”

  He nodded to his mother, his brow furrowed. He spared me one last parting glare and left.

  I looked sideways at Khaemezra. “He’s adopted, right?”

  The corner of her mouth twitched. “He has chosen to take after his father.”

  That stopped me. I’d asked rhetorically. Teraeth was clearly not Khaemezra’s blood kin. “Night and day” was an apt metaphor for the pair. He was one of the Manol vané. She was a Kirpis vané.

  At least, I thought she was. A woman who lived and breathed illusions could look like anything she wanted.

  I grimaced, rubbing damp palms on the fabric of my robe. “I can’t trust you. I know where those star tears came from.”

  “As do I: the hoard of the dragon Baelosh.”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “The hoard of the dragon Baelosh,” Khaemezra repeated. “Where they were stolen by Emperor Simillion. After he was murdered, the jewels were locked up with all the other priceless artifacts, in the center of the Arena in the Quuros capital. Centuries later, Emperor Gendal gave the necklace of stars to a striking Zheriaso courtesan whose beauty matched the night sky, and she used the jewels to buy her freedom. When her former owner, a man named Therin, was off having adventures with his friends, he used the necklace to save the life of a vané woman who was about to be executed. He offered to trade the necklace for ownership of the woman’s gaesh—and his vow that she would never return to the Manol.” She smiled. “That’s how the necklace came to me.”

  “So you don’t deny that you sold Miya—” I halted. “Execution? She was going to be executed?”

  “We call it the Traitor’s Walk. The condemned is gaeshed and forced into the Korthaen Blight. It may sound like exile, but trust me, it’s a death sentence. No rebirth. No Returning.”

  “And you thought, ‘Why not make some metal on the side?’”

  She scoffed. “I’d have sold her for a handful of glass beads and a broken twig if it meant she didn’t end up spitted on a morgage pike, while demons feasted on her soul. I was there when she was born. I watched her grow up. Watching her die would have broken my heart.” The sadness in Khaemezra’s eyes seemed too heartfelt to be anything but genuine.

  “You … you know Lady Miya then?” I had assumed their relationship was more … professional. I mean, Dethic the slaver back in Kishna-Farriga “knew” me, but I don’t think he’d have gotten broken up by the idea of my death.

  She didn’t answer at first. She turned away and looked to the side and I …

  I recognized that gesture, that look. I’d seen it before, even if the two women looked nothing alike. Khaemezra didn’t look like Miya any more than she looked like Teraeth, but something about their manner was so alike, that I recognized the connection immediately.

  “Holy thrones, you—” I gaped. “You’re related to Miya.”

  She blinked and turned back to me. “How observant. Yes. She was my granddaughter.”

  Oh. OH. “How could you? To summon up a demon and watch as it ripped out part of your granddaughter’s soul…”

  “Oh, no. I’m not like your Captain Juval. I didn’t order some lackey to summon a demon,” she said. “I gaeshed her soul myself. I used that.” She leaned over and tapped the Stone of Shackles at the base of my throat.

  I stared at her in horror. “No, you can’t—this can’t—”

  “You probably thought that bauble was a tsali stone, assuming you understand what a tsali stone is. It is not.” She flicked her hands away as if brushing away evil thoughts. “There are eight Cornerstones. Two stones for each of the four founding races. Each different, each with a different awful set of powers, each meant to usurp one of the Eight Gods.” Khaemezra chuckled, low and evil and without any warmth. “They failed in that at least. I’ll take my comforts where I can.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you saying I could use this to gaesh other people? But I am gaeshed!”

  “So? The Stone of Shackles cares not if your soul is divided or whole, only that it is here on this side of the Second Veil. Listen to me, because this is important: that glittery rock on your chest embodies a concept, and that concept is slavery. Every slave who has ever crawled or squirmed or died at the end of a lash feeds it, just as every death feeds Thaena. You wear an abomination around your neck and it makes the world a more terrible place by the fact of its existence.”

  I felt light-headed and dizzy. People had tried so hard to get me to remove that damn stone. At that moment, I wanted to take it off and throw it across the cabin—more than I had ever wanted anything in my life. I reached for the knot at the back of my neck, fingers scrambling in a panic. “And you used this on your granddaughter? I want it destroyed. I’ll smash it. I’ll break it—”

  “As easy to kill a god, dear child. No weapon you own is up to the task. Besides, it protects you. The Stone of Shackles saved your life just a few minutes ago. Your enemies believe they cannot kill you so long as you wear it; that the power of the Stone of Shackles would twist such an act to mean their deaths and not yours. Why do you think I gave it to Miya? As for why I used it on her, I had my reasons. Leave it at that.”

  That stopped me cold. Khaemezra was right, of course. The necklace couldn’t be taken by force; it had to be freely given.

  Also, she’d just given an order.

  I forced my hand away from the stone. “Is this what Relos Var wants? The Stone of Shackles?”

  Khaemezra sighed. “No. I doubt he cares for that particular trinket. He seeks something other than a magic necklace—your destruction.”

  “But why does he want to kill me? I’ve never met him, or done anything to him.”

  She smiled at me in a grandmotherly sort of way. “Dear child, I did not say he wants to kill you.”

  “But you said—” I stopped and felt cold. As a priestess of the Death Goddess, she wouldn’t be imprecise with any phrasing concerning murder.

  “Killing you would be a sloppy mistake, one that puts you back in the Afterlife, to be reborn or Returned.” She reached over and patted my knee. “Understand, it was pure luck…” She nodded at me. “… pure luck, that we had any idea about this auction. A source overheard Relos Var discussing the sale, and relayed that information to us without understanding its significance. However, I don’t know how he knew you would be there.”

  “He could have heard about my kidnapping. I’m sure half of Quur knows I’m missing by this point.” I grimaced. “How he knew to go looking for me in the Kishna-Farriga slave pits though … if Darzin knew where I was—” I paused. “Darzin’s found me before. Could he have ordered this Relos Var person to collect me once he knew my location?”

  She blinked at me and then laughed, awful and loud. “No.”

  “But—”

  “Darzin might be Relos Var’s lackey, but never the reverse. Prior to this you have met small men with small ambitions. But Relos Var? Relos Var is a Powe
r, one of the strongest in the whole world.”

  “Thanks for telling me. I’ll sleep so well tonight.” I swallowed. “Why me, again?”

  “There’s a prophecy.”

  I stared at her.

  Khaemezra stared back.

  I blanched, looked away, and reminded myself not to get into staring contests with High Priestesses of death cults. “I don’t believe in prophecy.”

  “Neither do I. Unfortunately, Relos Var seems to take these prophecies seriously, so I must as well. And in the meantime, I would like to train you and make sure that the next time you run into trouble, you will be better prepared.” She smiled. “I’ll think of it as a favor to Miya.”

  “No thanks, I already have a—” I started to say, I already have a goddess. I couldn’t spit out the words.

  She noticed the pause and her eyes narrowed. “Yes, Taja is your patron. But despite our origins, worshiping the Death Goddess is not a requirement for admission into our order. I seek a soldier, not a priest or fanatic. The Goddess of Luck will not object to your training at our hands.”

  I closed my eyes and shuddered. “I don’t give a fuck what Taja wants with me.”

  When I opened my eyes again, Khaemezra stared at me with open contempt.

  “Fool,” she whispered. She’d used much the same tone with Relos Var.

  Blood warmed my cheeks. “You don’t understand what I’ve been through—”

  “What is it about the idiot men in your family that you are all such fools? Stubborn. Mule-headed! If one of the Sisters chooses to give you her grace, do you think you can walk away from a goddess? That you can say ‘Bah, a bad thing has happened to me, fie on my goddess forever’? Taja walks with you as much now as she ever did. She protects you and comforts you, and if you will not see it, that is not her doing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Exactly what I’d expect a priestess to say. Easy words when you don’t sit here gaeshed, with the dried blood from flayed skin still staining your back. She … She…” I realized I shouldn’t say the words, but the damage hurt. What happened to me still hurt. Khaemezra may have healed the damage to my body, but the damage to my emotions, my soul, still festered, hot and raw.