The Tenets in the Tattoos (The King's Swordsman Book 1)

by Becky James

  “Then we should hurry. When the guards see she’s waking up, I expect them to call for me again. If they get another apothecarist to tend to her, that might not go well at all.” We took the stairs to the Academy two at a time.

  Aubin’s healer was a purple-eyed man with prominent cheekbones. I nearly ripped my jacket wrenching it off to get the healing underway. “Careful, we need that,” Aubin admonished me. “We’re in a rush, mancer – get it done with haste.” I gritted my teeth as the healing magic washed over me, setting bone in a huge painful surge that felt like fire lashing my arm and side.

  Once that was over, the remainder was a relaxing, soothing balm. I rolled my shoulders, feeling lighter and looser. Pain had hung over me for so long, slowing and snaring my limbs, that being pain-free made me feel like I could run for hours. “I’m ready to fight again.”

  “Good. I had an idea.” Aubin outlined the bare bones of his plan. It had glaring gaps and many pitfalls, but I had to admit I liked the shape of it. Just as we passed the headsman’s pike, Aubin pulled out a vibrating lodestone and held it to answer it. “It’s the guards. She’s waking and they are panicking.” I quickened my steps.

  The plan involved disguising myself enough from the soldiers on guard that they did not recognise me as Evyn’s soul but as just a member of Special Forces. We did have helmets we seldom wore but were standard issue. I left Aubin outside to quickly go to my bunk and retrieve it from under my bed. On top of it lay a wrapped blade, and I recognised the hilt of my father’s sword and its scabbard instantly. Barlay must have put it there. I picked it up, but as I started to unwind it, papers slid out. Wrapping it up again quickly, I put it on. It felt heavy at my hip.

  “Armed. Marvellous.” Aubin rejoined me in the courtyard, making it seem we happened to be going the same way.

  “Try not to use fatal force,” I told him. “The soldiers are just doing their jobs. They have families as well. It’s part of my code.”

  “I know. I’ll keep that in mind,” he murmured, his eyes darting up at me and back down, touching his pockets briefly.

  I put my helmet on as we walked up and up to the royal apartments. Soldiers recognised Aubin, letting him pass up to the higher levels as expected, and because I wore the reds, they let me through as well. Our attitudes also helped. I walked as if I escorted him, shooting supercilious glares at any soldier who looked like they might challenge me. Special Forces outranked the ranks; I planned to throw that considerable weight around if any soldier piped up.

  At the level of the royal apartments, I halted. The doors halfway down blocked our path. “I’ve never seen these closed before,” I said. They were thick and heavy, metalwork tangling and weaving across them as if brambles from Earth had overgrown them.

  “Torgund has closed the doors.” Aubin swore. “We won’t get through.” He picked his lip. “My soul is the Journey Mage of Stone, but she can work metal as well—”

  I approached the doors, testing them to see if they were locked. They swung in easily. “Or we can just push them open. Come on.” I marched in and Aubin hesitated a heartbeat before following, staring at me as if he’d never set eyes on me before. “What?”

  “Nevermind.” He pushed past me to lead the way.

  The Last Tower led up from the royal apartments, the final bastion of defence within the castle. It was never to be used apart from in dire emergency when the castle was overrun and the royal family was required to make a final attempt to survive an attack. Aubin led me toward the back of the apartments, where a corridor dead-ended. This time, I saw a door, one I had never seen standing open before. The foot of the Last Tower.

  The door was thick, panelled with wood on the outside to make it look seamless with the corridor. Cold, unyielding stone formed the inside. We walked up the steep and narrow spiral stairs, turning in tight circles. The dust of ages had been disturbed and hung in the air as glittering motes, smeared footsteps on every riser. Each turn revealed a defence line with small kill slits in the thick walls, and every time I came face to face with one my stomach trembled as I imagined a soldier behind it, a crossbow aimed between my eyes. I would not want to fight my way up this tower under any circumstances, but Evyn was here and I would try. Fortunately, there was no one installed here yet. We had to hurry.

  Soon, I was blowing and puffing with the never-ending winding stairs, but apart from a glowing sheen of sweat, Aubin looked unaffected. “Are you… a… trained… fighter?” I puffed.

  “Not in any grand sense. A hobbyist, one might say,” he murmured. My senses jangled. This man was dangerous. He was more than he appeared.

  I would go along with his plan, but I had a plan of my own. Evyn and I could get through to Earth and away quicker than blinking… leaving Aubin to face certain death. And probably a thorough torturing courtesy of Torgund beforehand, just to ensure he really didn’t know where we had vanished. My stomach fell. He might have questionable motives, but he didn’t deserve that fate, not when he seemed to be trying to help me. I’d have to figure something else out, assuming that we managed to succeed in this.

  We paused so I could catch my breath before getting to what Aubin thought to be the final turn. Sweat ran down my temples; I longed to pull the helmet off. My senses strained, my nerves gearing up ready for battle. I could hear two men up ahead and held up two fingers to Aubin. He nodded and raised an eyebrow, and I moved on up.

  “Halt! Who approaches?” Two Regulars in partial armour, a chest plate and bracers, were stationed on the flat beside a short corridor, guarding a tall door.

  “Special Forces. Stand down. You’re being replaced.”

  “We have received no such orders,” one of them said.

  “You have now. Unless you want to stay up here all day? I have better things to do.”

  They frowned at me suspiciously, and Aubin turned the corner. “At last. Right. Let me in to see the patient.”

  This was one of the most uncertain parts of the plan. We hoped that they would follow Aubin’s legitimate order and then comply with my false one.

  “Wait there, apothecarist.” One soldier lowered his halberd. “I know you. You’re Shardsson.”

  “Shard? As in…” The other one pointed down toward the courtyard below.

  “Yes, the traitor.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I am a full member of Special Forces, and I’m ordering you to stand down.”

  “Can you sort this out another time, please?” Aubin complained. “I need to see more than just this girl. I have patients waiting downstairs.”

  “Wait there. We need to receive orders from the king himself to change anything,” the one who had lowered the halberd said. They both backed against the recessed door, brandishing their weapons.

  Raising my hands I said, “Fine. I’m not going down and then back up these stairs again. One of you go.”

  “Not a chance,” they snarled in unison.

  Aubin moved around me. In the confined corridor he had to brush against me to pass me. “Well, while you argue about your shifts, I’m here to dose the girl. Let me in.”

  “We’re not letting anyone in! Alarm! Alarm!” the suspicious one shouted.

  Swearing, I lunged for them. Aubin went from walking to suddenly spinning, knocking their halberds down to one side with his foot. I was surprised at this show, but I didn’t waste the opening, grabbing hold of the more inquisitive soldier. “You’ll make a great Special Forces man. You should apply,” I told him as I choked him into unconsciousness. A knife flashed from Aubin, and the man went limp in my hands. “No!” I dropped the soldier. “I said don’t kill them!”

  “I didn’t. That’s just somnus root applied directly into the bloodstream. Now pull off their clothes and let’s get on with this.”

  In less than a hundred heartbeats I wore the green of the Regulars. I pulled the chest plate down over my stomach self-consciously; I was much taller than either of the men lying on the ground before us. “It will be a miracle if this pas
ses muster,” I muttered.

  “It need only survive a casual glance. We just have to get to the ground floor, you said. Presumably Evyn will need to be awake and functioning enough to do that.” Aubin wore the greens as well, but somehow he had already transferred his potions and knives into the jerkin. He selected a few vials and frowned. “Vitalis should be fine. It’s related to perdure, which can affect Earthians…”

  “Come on, let’s just get in there.” I fumbled with the keys, trying each one in the lock. Why were there twenty keys for one single lock?

  “There might be another guard in there with her,” cautioned Aubin. “And don’t be surprised when you see her. She has a quiescent collar on, so she will be non-responsive even if she is awake.”

  “I know, I know, that’s why we have to get in there now. It’s like she’s trapped in her own body, unable to move. It must be torture.” A hell that Torgund would consign her to for life. Anger flared against my heart and the keys jangled in my fist.

  Finally, the lock clicked. Aubin crowded in behind me in the recess that led to the door, and we pushed it open. I went in first with the halberd raised, ready to fight another guard or drop it to rush up and hold my soul if she proved alone. My heart pounded with each step inside.

  The final room in the Last Tower was fortified again with interlocking walls leading back and forth in a switchback. At the very back of the room were a series of beds and a bookshelf, a home away from home for royals surviving an assault.

  Aubin mutely pointed to one of the beds which was rumpled and utterly empty. My ears popped suddenly; I rubbed my head and saw Aubin doing the same. Frowning, Aubin surveyed the room, its unvarnished furnishings and map of Oberrot on the wall. I investigated every hidden corner, even the nook behind the door.

  “She’s gone,” Aubin said, slack-jawed.

  “Where is she?” I tore a cupboard open.

  “She was here. She was right here! She had a quiescent collar on. It was even those same soldiers that I left before. They were the ones that called me when they grew concerned that she was waking up…” He held up a hand.

  The sound of footsteps receding echoed up to us from the tower stairs.

  Chapter 11

  We raced outside. Both guards were still out cold. I barrelled down the stairs, huge strides skipping five risers each time to catch up to whoever scurried down to raise the alarm. I would have to stop them quickly and quietly. Before too long my headlong rush caught up to a hurrying form.

  “Evyn!”

  Putting out a hand to steady herself on the curving wall, she turned and gaped at me. “Thorrn!” She smiled as I pulled her to me in a huge hug. “Thorrn, I’m so glad to see you! Wait, are you hurt? Isn’t this hurting you?” She arched away from my arms.

  “No, I saw the medimancer, I’m all healed. Are you hurt?” I held her at arm’s length. She seemed hale if a bit pale, her hair wet ropes that made her shoulders sodden. “Are you well? How did you get out of the tower?”

  “Oh, I popped across the worlds.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling at my widening eyes. “I could hear some fighting going on and thought I’d best be out of this. I listened for where everyone was and when I heard the door unlock, I hid right next to it. Two soldiers came in and then I…” She took in my outfit. “Oh. That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I grinned. “And the collar? How did you get out of that?”

  “Oh, this?” She held up the hateful thing. Snatching it, I threw it wrathfully down the stairs to bounce around the corner with a clatter. “Er, okay. Well, I woke up and I felt really heavy and just kind of depressed, like I didn’t want to move or do anything, but I really wanted to see where you were. It was like fighting off a general anaesthetic, but I managed to sit up and when I felt it on, I took it off, and that was much better.”

  “Interesting.” Aubin had followed at a more sedate pace than me, halting on the risers above us.

  “Oh, uh. Hi, Aubin.” Evyn shut her mouth, her eyes widening at him.

  “Good day, Lady Evyn. I suppose quiescent collars are magical, and you’re able to resist magic.” He folded his arms.

  Evyn’s grip tightened around my arm. “Oh, it was probably loose or something—”

  Aubin held up a hand. “I know you’re Earthian, so you don’t need to lie. You aren’t very skilled at it.”

  “How do you know about that?” Her jaw dropped.

  “Special Forces here told Torgund.”

  Evyn turned her incredulous look onto me.

  “He was going to let you drown,” I said quietly, looking down at her hands. The chains had been taken off, but they had reddened her wrists. “I thought the only way to save your life would be to tell him so he would think you were valuable.”

  “So valuable he decided to take you for his own,” Aubin murmured. “That’s why you’re in this tower, where you would have spent the rest of your life in a drugged stupor. If indeed somnus root or collars worked on you, that is.”

  Evyn dropped my arm. “You told him? You told that madman? Who else knows?”

  “Rogan seemed to know already, and Aubin was there…” I quailed under her glare. “Evyn, it was to save your life, I thought he was going to kill you—”

  “Because that’s the only thing that makes me valuable. I get it now.”

  I felt her hurt just before her heart hardened. “Evyn, no, that’s not why—”

  “Let’s have this argument after we escape, yes?” Aubin suggested, and I had to agree. I went first, touching Evyn’s wrist on the way down. She pulled her arms to her chest, but I couldn’t concentrate on that now.

  I headed down the stairs with my purloined halberd in front and my father’s sword bashing on my hip.

  “You’re very resourceful, Lady Evyn,” Aubin said behind me.

  “Hm. I’m starting to think that being continually underestimated is kind of my superpower.” She sighed.

  Moving downwards, we encountered the collar, which had rattled down several spirals of the stairs. A soldier poked at it with the butt of his halberd, looking up as we approached. “Move aside! Prisoner coming through,” I barked.

  The soldier looked between us. “Who are you? I don’t recognise you.”

  “Step aside for Special Forces!” I ordered. Aubin tutted. I looked down as I remembered what uniform I was wearing. Swearing, I flicked the halberd haft into the soldier’s chin and he fell back, smashing his helmeted head on the wall and sliding down a few steps before I could catch up to him and halt his fall.

  “Poor guy,” Evyn murmured as she passed him, patting the unconscious soldier on the shoulder. “Why does Torgund want me anyway?”

  “You have the effect of making your soul companion immune to magic,” Aubin said.

  “Oh yeah. That does sound like it would be really useful.” I glanced back at her; she bit her lip as she looked away from me.

  “Evyn, that’s not the only reason I—”

  “Concentrate on getting down. We still have the entire royal apartments and castle to get through,” Aubin pointed out.

  As luck would have it, we encountered no one in the royal apartments and the doors were not closed or guarded; Torgund had to be out. We hurried down the corridor towards the stairs as Gavain came up them. Slowing, I motioned for Evyn to hide behind me, and I turned my head down as we passed him, saying gruffly, “Sir.”

  “Soldier,” Gavain responded absently.

  We took about five paces, my heart beating rapidly.

  “Thorrn?”

  I froze.

  “What are you wearing? What are you… Oh no. No, don’t do this, Thorrn. Stop. No.”

  “Gavain.” I turned to face my oldest and closest friend. He stood with his hand on his sword, ready to draw. I pushed Evyn and Aubin behind me. “Pretend you didn’t see us.”

  “Thorrn. You weren’t here when your father died. You didn’t see it.” He took a step toward us. “We all had to watch, Regulars and Special
Forces, the Guard, and the entire city. He got strung up, Thorrn, he was kicking and struggling, and he fought so very hard, but in the end, he lost… Thorrn, he came around when he was cut down. Torgund made him kneel, and he made me… he made me…”

  He slowly drew his sword. My stomach clenched as he spoke, bile rising in my throat as I imagined what had happened to my father.

  Gavain shook his head. “The king ordered me to take his head off, Thorrn, and Shard, he… your father, he said to me, ‘You’re a survivor.’ And I am, Thorrn. I’m not going to be strung up like he was. I’m not going to have my head cut clean off to fly onto the floor. And I’m not going to be put on a gibbet, not for you, not for anyone.” He squared his shoulders and paced closer towards us, sword out. “I’ll give you one chance. Give me the Earthian, and I’ll pretend nothing happened.”

  I took a guard stance, chest burning with a strange pain, as if Gavain’s words had set the breath in my lungs alight. “You know I won’t do that. He’s going to lock her up and never let her live.”

  “It’s better than death, Thorrn, and it’s death for us to disobey. Give her to me, and Torgund will make a more suitable match for you.” Gavain’s gaze flicked from me to Evyn and back. Evyn gasped. “You heard him say as much. My mother’s friend works in the soul swap, and she said she has a beautiful girl in, newly soulless.”

  “I don’t want another soul,” I argued. “I want Evyn.”

  “Is this about the magical immunity? That hasn’t worried us before. We train to fight magic by pressing and acting decisively.”

  “No, it’s not about that. I want Evyn. She’s my soul. Mine. Not Torgund’s. Not anyone else’s. She was meant for me.” I glanced back over my shoulder at her. “If you’ll have me.”

  She gave a cautious nod, cheeks suffused with pink.

  Gavain snorted. “That plain girl? You’ll throw away your career, your life, for that?”

  “Evyn is my soul. She’s brave and loyal and clever. She saved my life. And she burnt my pizza.” Gavain frowned. In his confusion, I attacked.