The Capital

by A. H. Lee

  Roland’s eyes skipped around the circle of faces as he took his place. Most of the major barons were represented, Uncle Winthrop standing among them. The parties from Lamont and Falcosta made the circle bigger than Roland suspected it had been on his father’s oath day. Roland had been nine years old at the time, and all he could remember was his father’s hand dripping blood over the stone and the voices of the witnesses shouting, “Long live the king!”

  His thoughts returned to the strategy room. He scanned the foreign faces, trying to remember which had been at the council meeting and where they had sat.

  Daphne walked to the boundary stone. She walked alone in a display of isolation and responsibility. No advisor, spouse, family member, or priest could stand with her. There was to be no power behind the throne. “I have come to take my oath,” she said, “as queen of Mistala by virtue of my birth and the wishes of my father the king.”

  Four pallbearers emerged from the palace, and the circle of witnesses made way for them. A fifth walked behind, bearing a lit torch.

  Unfortunately, another long-standing tradition of the blood oath was the removal of the old king’s token by the new king during the ceremony in view of witnesses. Arnoldo had been sealed into his coffin on the day of his death. He’d been embalmed, but decay would still have set in. Roland did not envy Daphne her task as she calmly unlatched the coffin, broke the official seal, and opened it.

  A faint reek drifted across the courtyard. It must certainly be overwhelming standing above the coffin, but Daphne did not flinch as she reached inside and cut something with her glass knife. She held aloft a lock of gray-brown hair. “Let any who wishes to look upon the face of the king step forward.”

  Nobody did.

  “Let it be known that the king is dead and that he will not walk.” This last phrase had been added to funerals in Roland’s lifetime. It was a tactful way of saying that the king’s head had been severed from his body before being placed in the coffin. This new tradition was a direct result of Karkaroth’s reign of terror in Roland’s grandfather’s day. Many people still resented the mutilation of their dead. Perhaps it’s just as well that Sairis isn’t here.

  In his mind’s eye, Roland saw again Sairis cutting his hand—a gesture that was eerily reminiscent of what Daphne was about to do. Blood and magic. No one would have called the boundary stones magic. Magic was something new and dangerous. The boundary stones were old and familiar—guardians of the realm, living history. But Roland wondered... Magic isn’t truly new, is it? Just changed.

  Daphne shut the coffin and latched it. She laid the lock of hair upon the stone and held out her hand for the torch. As the hair burned, she said, “So passes Arnoldo Malconwy. I, Daphne Malconwy, take up his duties. I swear to serve Mistala as her ruler and protector, to place her needs above my own, and to love her people as my children for as long as I draw breath. I swear this in my blood and the blood of my ancestors.” Daphne sliced her palm over the smoldering ashes of the token. Her blood pooled in the hollow of ancient stone, mingling with the ashes of her father’s token. “The king is dead,” she murmured.

  And Roland held his breath. He hadn’t thought about this part. What if the witnesses did not give the traditional response? Or what if they did? What if they said...

  “Long live the queen!” shouted someone. And then they were all shouting it. For the first time in Mistala’s history, the new refrain echoed in the ancient courtyard, “Long live the queen!”

  Roland realized he was grinning. His eyes were wet. Mistala has a queen. He felt as though a hidden gear had clicked over. Mistala has a queen. And maybe a prince could marry another man, and maybe magic does not have to be our enemy. The world is changing, and I just heard it shift.

  Daphne raised her slender fingers, wet with blood, in the traditional salute to her people.

  Roland’s smile froze.

  Slender female fingers, bloody. He could see them, wrapped in a bit of cloth, clutching an ever-so-sharp embroidery needle. Bruises on her wrists. Bruises that had distracted him, made him forget the blood...

  Roland’s eyes skipped over the party from Falcosta—back and forth, growing more frantic. Where is Candice?

  Chapter 34. In a Time Before Bronze

  Sairis braced himself as Princess Candice whirled from the pack she’d been stuffing. She might attack him, but she was an untrained thirteen-year-old, and it was a risk Sairis was willing to take. Maybe we can get to the bottom of this without anyone getting hurt.

  Candice was only startled for an instant. Then she scowled at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to find out who got me stabbed with a magic sword,” said Sairis mildly.

  “He stabbed you with it?” This, from the boy lounging against the bedframe.

  Sairis looked at him more closely. There was something familiar about the timbre of his voice... “You’re cute when you’re angry. You won’t beat him like that, though.”

  It’s the demon. Sairis wished he’d taken a closer look before revealing himself. A quick glance with true sight showed a crystalline aura brimming with magic, the like of which no human could possibly possess. It was an astral aspect, alright, and powerful. For one heart-stopping moment, Sairis thought it was unbound. But no. The binding was just...imperfect. Who is controlling this thing?

  “You’re who he was expecting to fight,” whispered Sairis. “He brought the sword for you.”

  The demon grinned, his perfect mouth twisting into something unkind, but still beautiful. “Half right, baby necromancer.”

  Sairis studied him. “Both of you. When Hastafel turned up in the strategy room, he expected to find both of you, because...” Sairis’s eyes darted between them. “She’s a sorcerer.”

  Candice rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you going to say sorceress?”

  “You sent Hastafel a mirror with your own blood in it,” continued Sairis. “You invited him. Why?”

  The girl went back to stuffing supplies into a pack. “You seem pretty good at telling the story. Why don’t you just keep talking?”

  “You made sure you weren’t actually present when he arrived,” murmured Sairis. “Did you lose your nerve?”

  Candice looked like she really wanted to say something, but swallowed the words.

  “Or was it an accident?” mused Sairis. “Did you just miss your rendezvous? Did you actually intend to fight with him, or did he plan to betray—?”

  “Where is the sword?” interrupted the demon. Sairis wondered how he could ever have mistaken its green eyes for human. They seemed to glow even in the light of the lamps. They all have animal forms. What is this one’s? His open shirt revealed a slender waist, a hairless chest of lean muscle—androgynous beauty, doubtless suited to the tastes of thirteen-year-old girls.

  Sairis looked at Candice. “Did Hastafel offer you the demon’s true name? In exchange for Hastafel’s victory over Mistala?” That would make sense... Sorcerers are nothing without demons. “You’re trapped in a kingdom that abhors magic with a father who will kill you if he finds out. He’s about to marry you off and that will make it even harder to hide. You need a demon. Hastafel promised you one. He promised you its name, so that you could properly bind it and draw magic from it.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to marry this fellow, Candy?” drawled the demon. “You wouldn’t even need to talk. He just does it all himself.”

  Candice gave the demon a kind of affectionate sneer. Sairis wondered whether she had, in fact, bound him. She wasn’t behaving like a thrall. So he hasn’t seduced her. Not yet. But she hasn’t properly bound him, either.

  “The baby necromancer is about as interested in your body as Roland is,” continued the demon, “but he’d be truly useful. Great source of magic. I say collar him.”

  Sairis could not repress a flinch, in spite of the fact that the demon was obviously baiting him.

  “I don’t even know where his body is, idiot,” snapped Candice. “Anyway, you�
�re enough of a handful.” She finished with the pack and straightened to give Sairis her full attention. “I know what you’re doing with Roland. I couldn’t figure it out at first, but then I heard about this blood oath they do in Mistala. And now I see.”

  Sairis put phantom hands into phantom pockets and refused to be drawn. “We don’t need to be at odds, Candice.”

  “I don’t think we are. I think we both want to stop Hastafel. Not because we’re heroes. Not because we care about Mistala or Falcosta or Lamont. We want to stop him because we’re nobody’s slaves. As for these kingdoms who hate magicians... I think we’d both like a bit of revenge.”

  Sairis almost said, “I don’t want revenge.” It was on the tip of his tongue, but...

  Candice’s dark brown eyes had a well of anger behind them that Sairis could understand. “Hastafel thinks that the Shattered Sea will be ruled by magicians,” continued Candice. “He thinks that only people like us can win battles and keep peace in a post-Sundering world. I think he’s right. But here’s the part he doesn’t understand: he’s from the old world. Hastafel, Karkaroth, stupid old Marsden. They were all born before the new magic. They’ll never be natives. They’re not the heirs to the Shattered Sea. We are.”

  It was quite a speech for a child. Sairis stood there and tried to think of a way to win her without violence. Or maybe we should just have a fight. Without a properly bound demon, Candice would not be strong. Not unless she’d acquired some very powerful artifacts. Sairis’s powers were limited under these conditions, but he felt certain he could drag her ghost into the mirror, at least temporarily.

  But how likely is she to cooperate after that? Sairis knew exactly what it felt like to be rendered helpless. It didn’t make a person cooperative. Besides, the demon was a wildcard. Demons did not typically defend sorcerers who were trying to bind them, but this one was playing a deep game. If it decided to intervene on Candice’s behalf, Sairis might be outmatched. Let’s try going back to basics. “What is the sword?” asked Sairis.

  Candice smiled thinly. “Where is it?”

  “You know I’m not going to tell you without knowing more. What did you—?”

  “Have you always known about the Mistalan boundary stones?”

  Sairis was momentarily confused by this change of subject. “The...what?”

  “The blood oath the king takes, the way the villagers treat the stones, making blood offerings and such. You’ve lived here all your life. You’ve surely noticed it. Karkaroth must have an opinion. We don’t have that stuff in Falcosta.”

  Sairis said nothing.

  “Are you fucking Roland?” Candice had her head on one side, a nasty gleam in her dark eyes. “You seem like the type, but I’d never have suspected him. That would make the spell stronger, I suppose. Maybe a lot stronger. Do you love him?”

  Sairis didn’t trust himself to speak. What kind of forbidden grimoires have you studied to learn such a thing?

  “Those stones are part of something powerful. I wonder how it worked in the old days.”

  “Sacrificial blood magic.” Sairis was hardly aware of speaking aloud.

  “It doesn’t get any stronger than that,” said Candice. “I bet the villagers used to sacrifice living people in the time before bronze. The boundary stones...they’re altars, aren’t they?”

  Sairis wanted to take a break from this conversation and gather his thoughts. I have vastly underestimated this young woman.

  “The village shamans...or healers...or witches...they must have drawn magic stored in the stones,” continued Candice. “They probably didn’t even call it magic. They probably called it religion. And it would have worked even before the Sundering...with enough sacrifices.”

  “Yes, well, we don’t live in a time before bronze,” snapped Sairis. He was aware that his tone revealed how much she was getting to him. “We don’t sacrifice people anymore.”

  “Necromancers do,” purred the demon.

  “Royal blood...” murmured Candice. “Do the stones even know that Mistala can have a queen? If the magic only recognizes a male line, it would be like sacrificing the king. Can you even imagine how much power...?”

  “Tell me about the sword!” barked Sairis. “Tell me, or I leave, and you will never find it.”

  Candice shook her head. “Blood magic is a trade. To get the most power, you need to trade something you love. Doing it right is terribly difficult. I suppose most people shut their eyes and pretend...right up until the end...that they’re not really going to do it.”

  There was a tiny sound from the direction of the door on Candice’s side of the glass—an intake of breath, perhaps, or a person dropping something. When Sairis glanced that way, he saw that the door was ajar. Was it like that before? He didn’t think so. Someone has been listening. For how long? Sairis had a sinking feeling. Everything was going sideways.

  The demon crossed the room, silent as a cat, and flung open the door. Sairis was not entirely surprised to see Roland standing there, his hand raised as though to push against the wood, but frozen. He looked surprised. His eyes met Sairis’s in the glass.

  Sairis gathered himself. He wanted to say all kinds of things, but he never got the chance. At that moment, King Norres hurried into the room, giving Roland a suspicious look as he shoved past him.

  The man’s eyes lit upon the demon, then slid past him to Candice. “I knew it,” he hissed. “No wonder you don’t want to marry a decent man. You little whore.”

  Chapter 35. Norres

  “Royal blood... It would be like sacrificing the king. Can you even imagine how much power...?” The words ran round and round Roland’s head without quite making sense. Sairis’s expression when their eyes met was...guilty? Roland told himself that wasn’t true. Sairis was just startled. So was Roland. He hadn’t wanted to marry Candice, but he’d borne her no ill will. Her apparent collusion with Hastafel felt like a personal betrayal, although he supposed that wasn’t fair. She’d certainly been in a bad situation.

  As though to emphasize this, King Norres arrived before Sairis had a chance to explain anything. The man was intensely suspicious. Now, seeing the beautiful boy standing between Candice and the king, Roland supposed the king’s suspicions must have been well-founded.

  As the king began hurling abuse and accusations at his daughter, Roland glanced towards Sairis. Get out of here before someone else sees you! Surely the combination of her father and the university magicians would be enough to deal with Candice. Even if she was a magician, she was young and couldn’t have had any training.

  Falcostan guards were filing into the hall behind Roland. Their captain started into the room behind the king and then hesitated. This was sensitive family business. “Highness,” said the captain to Roland, “you need to leave.”

  Absolutely not. Roland shot a glance at the mirror and was horrified to see Sairis waving his arms. He was shouting something. His voice, though audible, came as though at a distance, and Roland could not catch the words over the murmur of the guards and the enraged voice of their king.

  “You have brought shame upon me,” Norres snarled at Candice. “Shame upon your house and your mother’s name. Rutting with some lowborn peasant like a bitch in heat. Parading him before a foreign court! I present you with a handsome man of royal blood, and this is how you repay me? You’re not fit for a decent husband. I suppose some upstart merchant may have you. One of the elders. He won’t care if you’ve bedded half of Mistala, so long as you’re of royal blood. If you bear a bastard child, that will at least prove your womb, though the mongrel will have to be strangled.”

  Candice had backed up against a dresser. She had her head down in what Roland suspected was a long-practiced gesture of submission and fear. Roland felt ill. He wanted to intervene, although he wasn’t sure how. Saying the wrong thing here could start a war. He thought that the captain might forcibly escort him from the room, but the captain was distracted by a disturbance at the far end of the hall. A subordinate
pushed his way to the front. He began a furious muttered conversation with his leader. Roland seemed momentarily forgotten.

  “You have stolen from me, Candice,” breathed Norres. “You will make it right. You will pay the debt. But first a lesson must be learned.” He took another step towards her, and the boy moved, quick as an eel, to stand squarely before the king.

  “You’re not going to hit her, are you? I think that would be a bad idea.” Something about the boy’s voice made the hair at Roland’s nape prickle. Have I met him before?

  Norres did not even look at the boy as he delivered a well-practiced cuff that sent the youngster staggering into the bedframe. He reached his daughter and seized her arm in a white-knuckled grip. “Who is he? Some village scoundrel you met on one of your walks? I’m going to take him apart in the dungeon.”

  Candice raised her head, her face inches from her father’s. Roland was struck by the similarity of their faces. The same bone structure...and the same rage. Candice wasn’t afraid. She was angry and trying to hide it.

  Norres saw it, too, and slapped her hard with his free hand. “Don’t you dare give me that look, girl! Answer!”

  The boy got to his feet, shaking his head like a dog who’d been kicked. He looked far less concerned than the situation warranted.

  The Falcostan captain beside Roland spoke suddenly to Norres, raising his voice to get his king’s attention. “My liege, Mistalan magicians are asking permission to enter the suite. They seem to believe there is some danger here.”

  Oh, gods. Roland remembered where he’d heard the boy’s voice.

  “Tell the Mistalans they can go bugger each other,” snapped Norres.