"Or maybe it's the only reason for this." She drew a daring breath, committed herself to her risks. "I'm going to buy a horse from the gentleman. Then I'm going to leave. I promise to never use more force than I need to. Let me go, and we can forget about this."
She steeled herself and walked past him, toward the counter. He let her go, his expression unreadable.
She had just felt the first flush of relief when his spear exploded out of her chest.
Her breath vanished in a sucking hiss. Impossible, blinding pain seared her through. She launched her mind upward, trying to Ascend—and sank to the floor instead, her hands jerking of their own accord to the shaft of dark wood jutting from her body.
She saw the shopkeeper stumble backward, his hand over his mouth.
Then the darkness closed in, and she saw nothing.
19
i. Seth
He knelt next to her, felt the heat of her blood on his knees as it soaked into his garments. She died quickly; he had seen to that with a precise strike. He was not without mercy.
"I'm sorry," he said as he closed her eyes and pulled his spear free. "I wish there had been another way."
The shopkeeper had fled, leaving him alone in the little room. He removed his cloak and wrapped her in it, trying to afford her what dignity he could. Everything happened at arm's length, filtered through his eyes as if through a winding tunnel. He was dreaming, or dreaming of a dream; even the heat of her blood against his flesh felt like something from another life.
He replaced his spear on his back, lifted her quiet body, and walked into the street.
Every eye bore into him; he felt their weight like a two-ton pack. People in conversation fell silent, watching, their gazes equal parts condemnation and confusion.
They knew him. Everyone knew him: he was Mother Lyseira's Preserver. Her guardian. Rarely seen outside her presence.
Today, he was outside her presence. Acting on his own. And everyone would remember.
You've always hated me. It's the only reason for this. The echo of Syntal's accusations chased him up the street. You've always hated me. You've always hated me.
She had slaughtered a score of men with nothing more than a wish. She had refused to recognize her sins. This had been the only answer, the only solution. She'd left him no choice.
He carried her body through the streets as the crowd gathered, their whispers growing. They followed him north, through the central square where Marcus had tried to execute Isaic, and beyond, to the very steps of Basica Majesta, where Angbar worked with a swarm of Kesprey to distribute the remaining grain.
"Seth?" Angbar's glance took in the body in Seth's arms and the crowd that had gathered behind him, his face a mask of confusion. Then he saw the tumbling mess of raven hair, leaking from the cloak like a shadow, and the single arm that had worked its way loose, one finger still bearing the pale stain of a black ring worn for years. He stumbled backward, hands over his mouth. "Oh, my God. What happened? Seth, what happened?"
Someone ran inside, crying for Lyseira.
"Seth?" Angbar said again. A thread of hysteria wormed into his voice. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" He lurched toward Syntal's body, horror-stricken; sank to his knees in the slush. "Syntal? Syntal?"
"I did what had to be done." Seth spoke from another person's mouth, a thousand miles beneath him; the weight of Syntal's body was a memory from someone else's arms. "I'll accept whatever punishment."
Lyseira emerged onto the steps.
"You killed her?" From his knees, Angbar looked up at him. "You did this?"
"You saw what she did in Twosides." It was no defense; merely an explanation. "I told her she could never do it again. She refused. I warned her."
Angbar gaped—incredulous, shivering. "Oh, my God!" he cried again. "Oh, my God, Syntal!" He fumbled at her dead arm, kissed her hand, dissolved into wild sobs.
Lyseira joined them, pale and trembling. She slipped a hand under the cloak to feel Syntal's still neck. "You did this?" she asked, her eyes like stones.
Seth nodded. He would accept any judgment from her, even if she arbitrated his end.
Then the crowd parted for a clatter of wild hoofbeats. Helix burst into the temple square, his horse lathered and heaving. "Seth!" he roared. "I saw―!" His mount drew up, rearing. His blind gaze—covered with a filthy rag—locked on his cousin's corpse. "I saw . . ." He couldn't manage the words, couldn't acknowledge the horror in front of him. "You sehking snake!" he screamed.
Seth knelt and laid Syntal on the ground. "Take her," he said to Angbar. "Make sure she's buried with honor."
Helix leapt from his horse, tore his father's sword from its sheath. His face twisted with rage as he stalked forward.
"Helix―" Lyseira started, stepping in front of Seth, but Seth pushed her away.
"No," he said. "Let him." Helix's judgment, too, he would accept.
"You killed her?" Helix shrieked. "You sehking rat, you sehking coward, you sehking killed her?" He raised his father's sword, its jeweled hilt flashing.
Seth flinched from his rage. He cast his eyes down, arms limp, waiting for the inevitable. This is best, he realized. In its way, this was what he'd wanted all along.
Helix's grip trembled as he held his weapon for the death blow. Then he gave a strangled cry and drove the sword to the stone. The blade bent, snapped.
He sank to the ground, raw and shivering, and cradled his cousin in his arms as he sobbed.
Seth turned himself in to one of the Blackboots passing through the square, offering no struggle as the man shackled his hands behind him and sent a compatriot for a wagon.
"Seth," Lyseira insisted as she stood by, "think about this."
"I've committed murder. I submit to the law."
"Syntal's guilty of massacre. She was trying to flee. The King will―"
"The King will judge either way. I don't mean to resist." Funny, how she still used the present tense to talk about Syntal. Death was hard to accept. Reality only soaked in over time.
"Well, at least present your side!" Lyseira said. "She was trying to run! You said so yourself! And what she did in Twosides . . . Helix didn't see . . ."
She was trying to help, even now; affording him consideration and alliance he didn't deserve, had never deserved. He'd betrayed or failed every ideal he'd ever held. Didn't she see that?
"Lyseira," he said, trying to catch her attention one last time before the town guard hauled him off. There was one thing he had to tell her, one admission he had never made. "Lyseira."
Her arguments trailed off; pain shone like starlight in her eyes.
"I love you, sister. You're a better person than me." Then they hauled him into the back of the jail wagon and shut the door, shunting him into darkness.
They brought him to a prison he didn't recognize; it wasn't the same one he'd spent the night in last year. If anything it was nicer, with open bars between the cells and a basin of water in the corner. The other inmates—drunks and thieves, looked like, maybe the occasional ruffian—eyed him as the guards brought him in.
"I know you," one of them said. He was practically a caricature of a homeless drunk, with an oversized red nose and eyes yellow with ale's shadow. His hair wilted from his head in greasy black strings. "I've seen you before."
"Shut it, Kent," one of the Blackboots said, halfheartedly. After he'd locked Seth in a cell and left, Kent spoke again.
"Where are you from? I've seen you."
Seth kept his silence, eyes down. Kent started tapping the stone floor, ponderously cycling through his memory.
"Around the city, a bunch of times—I know I've seen you."
"Yeah," one of the other prisoners put in. He had a split lip and a black eye, peering out balefully from a field of scrapes and bruises on his face. "Yeah, I've seen him too."
Kent snapped his fingers. "He's the new churchie!" he exclaimed. "The one that's always with the priestess, the one in charge!"
"I'll be Hel-damned," Bl
ackeye said. "Sam, right? Or . . . Simon . . . ?"
"I heard he's her brother, kicked out of the Preservers. Does all her dirty work."
"Saul. Or . . . is it Saul?"
"Seth," Seth growled.
"Seth!" Blackeye crowed. "Yeah, I've heard of you."
"You're practically in charge of this new church the King's got going." Kent whistled. "What in Hel did you do to end up in here?"
Seth kept his tongue—something he should have done from the beginning.
"Must be really bad," Kent went on, "if you gotta be coy about it. I thought that church of yours was the King's new favorite."
"Maybe he's a fornicator," Blackeye said. "Like, he fornicated with goats."
"Or little kids," Kent mused.
"Or his sister!"
"Incest!" Kent looked at Seth. "Was it incest?"
If they hoped their barbs would prick him, they had no idea who he was. He was a stoic, an absolute master of himself. He ignored their taunts and stared resolutely at the floor.
"Nah," Kent continued. "Look at him. He ain't got the pecker for it. It's something else. Maybe the church ain't as great as the King made it out to be? Maybe they cocked something up, and he's making 'em shut down the business."
"There's nothing wrong with the Kespran church." Lyseira's church hadn't committed his sin. It was his, he owned it, and he wouldn't let them lay it on her. "They're saving lives; the King knows it."
"So you say," Kent threw back, happy he finally rattled Seth enough to make him talk. "How do we know? You're in bed with them—maybe in more ways than one. You'd say anything."
"I'm in here for my own crime. The church has nothing to do with it."
"That right?" Blackeye said. "What crime's that?"
"Murder."
"Yeah? Who'd you kill?"
"Syntal Smith."
That shut them up—for a second. Then Kent let out a long, low whistle.
"The Witch of Southlight?" Blackeye said. "The one working for the King, that killed those kids up at the wheat field?"
He'd said enough. More than enough. Why was he even talking at all? Why did he care what a pair of flea-bitten drunks from Broadside had to say?
"So you did chafe the King's cheeks," Blackeye said. "He gonna kill you?"
"Kill him?" Kent spat. "He should give him a medal! Boy here did him a favor. That girl was crazy—everyone knew it."
"I heard she was working for him," Blackeye said. "He's paying for that school they got going and everything."
Kent shrugged. "Who put you up to it, then? That sister of yours finally realize those witches are dangerous? Tribunal was overzealous, maybe, sure—but at least they didn't suffer a witch to live."
That would be the story, he suddenly realized: that the church had sanctioned it. That the Kesprey had killed her. No one would even understand that it had been his decision. He had hung this around his sister's neck, had jeopardized everything she'd worked for: one final parting gift to her before his execution. "Lyseira had nothing to do with it," he snapped. "It was my decision. Get that through your head."
"Or what?" Kent gave him a mocking grin. "You're gonna kill me?"
"Wouldn't be that hard."
"Well come on then, boy. I'm right here."
Seth met his eyes. Two sets of bars separated them—he was in the cell just across the way. The bars looked old; he'd heard them rattling in their moorings when the guard brought him in. If he could clear his mind, the right application of power in the right place could tear them out. It would be difficult, with his hands still shackled behind him, but not impossible.
Kent's smile faded as he read Seth's face. He raised his hands. "All right, now. I'm just messing with you."
The door to the cell block groaned open. Melakai strode through, jaw set and eyes flashing. "Sehk'akir," he growled as he saw Seth. "You're coming with me." Then, to the guard with him: "Get him out of there."
The guard unlocked the cell door and ushered Seth out. "Kai," Seth said, hating himself for how desperate he sounded, "you have to tell them this was my idea. Lyseira had nothing to do with―"
"Shut up," Kai said, turning back toward the door, "or so help me God, I will make you."
"This is a fine stew you've cooked up," Kai snarled as he led him through the palace halls. "You're lucky it's not up to me, because if it were, you'd be hanging from a tree by nightfall."
Seth didn't dread that possibility. At least it would stop his failures.
"I don't know what in Hel you were thinking. Who in Hel you think you are. It was my job to bring her in. Mine. And it was the King's job to decide. Not yours."
Seth blinked the diatribe away. It was no more dangerous than a spattering of rain drops.
"Even just being seen here is going to help your cause with the people—I told him that, but he wouldn't listen. He wouldn't go to Redbrick to meet you; he insisted I bring you here. I don't know what he has in mind for you, but you'd best shut your damn mouth and hear it out. You're in no position to claim any favors. None." He paused at the door to the King's receiving room. "You understand?"
Seth nodded, and Kai opened the door. King Isaic stood inside. Seth entered and bowed. "Your Highness," he said.
"Thank you, Captain," Isaic said to Melakai. "You may leave us."
Melakai blinked. ". . . Your Highness?"
"You heard me, Captain."
Kai bowed, shot Seth a final warning glare, and left them. As the door closed, Seth looked past the King and into the palace gardens, frozen in winter's chill just beyond the window, and waited his fate.
The King kept his silence, maybe testing Seth to see if he would speak first, try to defend himself. Seth declined. Isaic undoubtedly already knew everything that happened. He would speak when he had to, and not before.
Finally, Isaic said, "She killed twenty subjects of mine. Mine. Their fate was not hers to judge."
He shook his head. "But neither was her fate yours."
Seth waited. Here it came.
A cool serenity stole over him, the shock of his highsun murder slowly thawing into a kind of resigned peace. The idea that he could stop fighting, finally, that he could stop trying to figure out what was right and constantly berating himself for his failures, was refreshing as a vial of Ordlan's water in the Waste.
"So yes," the King said, "you committed murder." He heaved a sigh. "But last summer you also saved my life."
Disappointment flickered like a tongue of flame in Seth's breast. No, he thought. Don't. He didn't let it touch his eyes.
The King drew a breath, resolving himself to his decision. "I want you gone by sunrise. Get what you need from Kai, then leave Keswick under cover of darkness. I never want to hear mention of you again."
Banishment. Seth acknowledged it like a dagger sprouting from his heart. Far from the release execution would bring him, it was a consignment to endless nights of reflection and agony. A life with even less purpose, if that were possible, than the life he had led since Retash had sent him to Southlight.
"I'm to be exiled?"
Isaic batted the question away. "Nothing so formal. This conversation is between you and I. Outside of this room, it never happened.
"Tonight you disappear, and tomorrow, I declare there are more important matters than hunting you down. I don't care where you go, so long as you draw no attention to yourself."
"Your Highness," Seth said, appalled by his own temerity, "have you considered that I don't deserve your mercy?"
The King glared. "Have you considered," he returned evenly, "that mercy has nothing to do with this?" His expression softened slightly; he peered at Seth as if seeing him for the first time. "Wait." He breathed a sigh of realization; pointed an accusing finger. "You want to die. Is that it? You came here expecting that I would execute you—hoped for it?"
Of course not. The denial was on Seth's lips, but he couldn't utter it. He had thrown himself at the mercy of Lyseira and Helix and now the King; had told himself
that he would accept any punishment for his crime.
But in this, too, he had failed. He would not accept any punishment. He craved only one.
"I'm not your confessor, Seth. I serve my own ends and those of my people—not yours. What you do with your life once you've left Keswick is yours to decide, but I'll not be the blade that commits your suicide." He shook his head, scoffed, and murmured to himself, "I don't have the time."
Seth felt his face burning: an abject failure of self-discipline that would've resulted in days of punishment at the compound where he'd grown up. He felt himself spiraling out of control, a wail of despair that billowed up from his gut like a bonfire. "Yes, my liege," he said.
"Kai!" Isaic barked. Melakai swept in, his eyes quickly scanning Seth for any sign of trouble. "Get those manacles off him and get him out of here. Find him a place to stay until nightfall. He'll be taking a journey; supply any provisions he asks and give him enough coin to get started. Tonight, see him through the palace gates—quietly. This matter is settled."
"Yes, Your Highness," Kai said, and led Seth out of the room and into the rest of his wretched life.
Kai did as the King asked, leading him first to an abandoned servant's room, then collecting and fulfilling a list of supplies he would need for the road. Seth waited as night's winter shadows seeped slowly into the palace grounds. Then Kai gave him a heavy cloak and spirited him out through a series of halls and dim passages he'd never seen before. They emerged eventually into the winter ruins of the palace garden, in a perimeter of weak clericlight shining from crystals set on the walls. When they reached the street beyond, Kai stopped him.
"I won't second-guess the King," he murmured, "even if I do think you're getting off too easily. But my granddaughter is a chanter." He revealed the words like glittering jewels, watching Seth's eyes to see if he recognized their importance. "She's better than Syntal was. More compassionate. She'd never do what that girl did in Twosides. And you've made a world where everyone's going to think they can kill her and get away with it."
Of Dark Things Waking (The Redemption Chronicle Book 3) Page 34