by Jenna Glass
“You would do that?” Draios asked, his voice tinged with suspicion.
Delnamal met the young zealot’s eyes. “If the Creator asked you to sacrifice your life for His glory, would you obey?”
“Of course,” Draios said without hesitation.
Delnamal suspected the fool actually meant it. Just as he suspected that if Draios truly did receive such a command, he would twist himself in knots until he found a way to interpret it to mean something very different.
“Well then, you can understand my position.”
But Draios still looked at him askance. “But you are not a priest, nor have I ever heard tell that you were a particularly holy man. I find it surprising that you would have the devotion necessary to sacrifice your own life.”
Delnamal lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “My mother raised me to abide by the Devotional. I must admit that for most of my life, I failed her miserably. But the power that the Creator has granted me has changed me. How can I not obey His wishes when He has touched me so personally? Were it not for His grace, I would have died that day at the Well. I must repay my debt, and atone for my sins.”
Delnamal was pretty sure Draios’s instincts—perhaps even his common sense—were screaming at him that he should not listen to all this nonsense. Just as he was sure his desire for glory caused him to hang on every word.
“To undo the Curse,” Delnamal said, swooping in for the kill, “I must retake my kingdom so that I might have access to Aaltah’s Well. That is not something I can do by myself, no matter how much the Creator has blessed me. I need more than just Khalpar’s support. I need its army and navy.”
Draios scoffed, his lips twisting into a bitter grimace. “Even if I can persuade my father of your power and your mission, I cannot see him going to war with Aaltah. He is not what I would call a man of action.”
For the first time, Delnamal acknowledged a twinge of doubt. His own emotional outbursts had unquestionably made his negotiations with his uncle more problematic than they had needed to be while he was King of Aaltah, but it was just as unquestionably true that Draios’s assessment of his father was accurate: King Khalvin valued prayer and thought above action, and it was possible a man such as he could never be persuaded to launch an attack.
“That is why you need me to explain my power and my mission to him,” Delnamal said, letting none of his own doubts color his voice even as his mind began rethinking the problem once again. Maybe Draios could be useful to him as something other than a mere conduit to his father.
Draios stiffened, his jaw jutting out. “My father may not value me as much as he ought, but he is still more likely to listen to his own son than to a disgraced nephew,” he growled.
Draios no doubt intended his words to be insulting, but Delnamal was no longer vulnerable to the pain that mere words used to cause him.
“You misunderstand me,” he said, making a calming motion at the young prince who was now visibly seething. The boy’s relationship with his father was clearly a sore spot, and Delnamal realized at once that it made for a vulnerability he knew exactly how to exploit. “I did not mean to imply that your father would be more open to my words than yours. It is only that if he is not persuaded—or if he is persuaded and yet refuses to go to war—I have…tools at my disposal that you do not. Tools to help us ensure that the Creator’s will is done.”
Draios went pale with shock. “What do you mean?” he asked, although the look on his face said he knew exactly what Delnamal was suggesting.
“When we arrive in Khalwell,” Delnamal said, “you must arrange a meeting with your father and your brother. I will present my case to them both. The Curse must be undone, and the world returned to its natural order. I will, of course, do everything in my power to persuade your father to help us fulfill the Creator’s mission without any unpleasantness. But should he be blind to the truth, or should he prove reluctant to act upon it, then perhaps I can demonstrate just what my power can do.”
Draios would have looked convincingly appalled, if not for the strange, greedy glint in his eye. “You mean to kill Parlommir.” His voice showed the appropriate level of horror at the prospect, but that was not at all what Delnamal saw in his eyes. He suspected it was the same look that had come into his own eyes every time he’d spoken Tynthanal’s name. It was a potent, toxic mix of hatred and jealousy and resentment, and Delnamal had no doubt that Draios had more than once wished his brother dead.
“I mean to do no such thing,” Delnamal said stoutly. “My intention is to persuade your father to accept the Creator’s will. I have perhaps not been as persuasive as I’d hoped when I wrote to him, but when he sees me in person—and when he has you there to help him understand how the Creator is working through me—I have every confidence that he will answer the Creator’s call. It is only if he fails the test of faith that other, more unpleasant persuasions might be necessary. If such happens, then we must believe that it is part of the Creator’s will that a man of genuine, wholehearted piety—such as yourself—succeed your father to the throne.”
Draios, his face still pale despite the almost lustful expression in his eyes, made a great show of thinking it over with furrowed brow. But his conclusion had been inevitable from the moment Delnamal started speaking.
“Very well,” Draios said with feigned reluctance. “I shall do as you suggest.”
Delnamal suppressed a smile of triumph. No one but the king’s own son would be able to smuggle an uninvited guest into a royal audience, but no palace guards would gainsay Prince Draios when he showed up with Delnamal in tow. Then one way or another, Delnamal would gain the men and weapons he needed to take back the kingdom that had been stolen from him.
* * *
—
Leethan shivered in mingled cold and dread as she and Jaizal made their way across the Abbey’s courtyard under the light of a full moon. The heavy breeches and doublet she wore under her even heavier cloak felt awkward and oddly restrictive after decades of wearing nothing but her official robes, but she knew she would be thankful for them when they plunged out into the snow they were sure to encounter on their journey.
It was a bitterly cold night, the wind biting relentlessly at any patch of revealed skin, but at least it wasn’t snowing, and the clear light of the moon would make traversing the narrow pass that led to the Abbey easier. She had waited longer than was strictly wise to stage this daring escape, but it had taken time to gather the supplies they would need without attracting attention, and a snowstorm—unusually vicious for this early in the season—had delayed them even further.
It was late enough at night that the stable was empty except for the two sturdy mountain ponies that had carried a load of food supplies to the Abbey earlier in the day. They were due to begin their short journey back to The Keep in the morning, and the Abbey would not receive another shipment of supplies for a fortnight. Leethan had drugged the wine she had left in the caravan driver’s room, so he would wake in the morning far too ill to set out. She hoped that meant it would take a little longer before anyone noticed that she and the others were missing.
The stable was only warmer than the courtyard because of the lack of wind. The temperature would have had to dip much lower for Leethan to use the Abbey’s meager supply of wood to warm the place, for the ponies were bred for Nandel winters. It was also pitch dark inside once the door was closed. Leethan drew a small luminant from within the folds of her cloak and lit it. The ponies regarded her curiously.
Laurel, leading a sleepy Princess Elwynne, emerged from the shadows at the back of the stable, where she had been waiting for them. Unlike Leethan and Jaizal, both Elwynne and Laurel were dressed in their own warmest clothing. Leethan would have had no way to obtain boy’s clothing to fit Elwynne, and a little girl traveling with three men would have drawn attention they could not afford. But a little girl traveling with her governess and tw
o men would be far less noticeable—as long as no one got a close enough look at Leethan and Jaizal to penetrate the disguise.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Leethan asked Laurel anxiously, her every instinct screaming at her that the old woman could not possibly survive the hard journey ahead.
“Want to?” Laurel said. “Well, no, of course not.” She laid a hand protectively on Elwynne’s head. The girl leaned against her, silent and trusting. “But where my lady goes, there go I.”
Elwynne smiled ever so slightly at being called a lady. Although it was well past her bedtime, she looked more excited than sleepy. Laurel had painted their nighttime departure as part of a playful prank, designed to surprise and flummox the rest of the abigails when they woke in the morning to find her gone.
“I reminded Miss Laurel to pack an extra cloak so that she would not be cold,” Elwynne confided in a whisper, taking hold of her governess’s hand and squeezing as if to give comfort. Leethan knew Laurel had tried to downplay the difficulty of the journey on which they were about to embark, but it seemed the child had sensed her disquiet.
“That was most thoughtful of you,” Leethan said with what she hoped was a warm smile, even as she dreaded the ordeal that was to come.
Working quietly and as quickly as possible, Leethan and Jaizal dug through the straw to find the packs they had prepared. One held their own supplies, and one held feed for the ponies. The supply was far from adequate—the Abbey did not keep much feed, for the ponies only came every two weeks and stayed for only one night—but it was better than nothing.
“How much of a head start do you think we’ll have?” Jaizal asked under her breath as she cinched the straps on the last saddle bag.
“Hard to say,” Leethan answered just as quietly, for though she’d asked herself that question many times, she had yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. Their absence would be noticed by their sisters first thing in the morning, when none of them made an appearance in the dining hall. But the abigails had no means to pursue, even if they’d had the desire to do so. The ponies would be gone, and the Abbey did not possess any horses or chevals. “I don’t believe any of our sisters will betray us by pointing out our absence to the caravan driver…”
Jaizal nodded. “But they will be frightened of what might happen to them if they stay silent, and that fear might overpower their loyalty.”
“Exactly,” Leethan said with a sigh. “If we’re very lucky and our braver sisters keep the silence, then we may have a day or two before the pursuit begins.”
Leethan had taken the sole flier in the Abbey’s possession, so the only means to get word to The Keep was for the caravan driver to return on foot to sound the alarm. As long as he didn’t realize anything was amiss, he might take the entire day to recuperate from his illness. Then, once he discovered the ponies gone, it would take him much of the next day to walk back to The Keep.
“But we should assume we will not be lucky at all,” Laurel said after lifting her small charge onto the pony’s back. “Let us walk and talk at the same time.”
Leethan felt no inclination to argue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Draios waited in the king’s antechamber and fumed silently, unable to resist the urge to pace in an effort to work off his anger. The moment he’d returned to the palace, he’d sent an urgent request for an audience with both the king and Parlommir. He’d done it to preempt the summons he’d known would come—his father would be furious with him for having left Khalwell without permission, and he was unlikely to have been persuaded by the hastily concocted excuse Draios had left behind. However, the king’s response had not mentioned that Parlommir had only this morning boarded the navy’s flagship to oversee a training exercise that would keep him from Khalwell for a good three or four days. That Draios had only learned when he’d entered the antechamber.
“There’s no need to worry,” said Delnamal, who sat cloaked and hooded like a monk. His hunched back and the skeletal hand that clutched his cane made him seem like a frail, harmless old man. Draios knew they likely could have done away with the disguise—no palace guard was going to refuse entry to the king’s son, even if that son had an uninvited guest trailing along in his wake. But the king’s secretary would almost certainly have told the king Delnamal was here, and Draios and Delnamal both agreed it had better be a surprise.
“I’m not worried,” Draios snapped. He could not see Delnamal’s face under the hood, but he had the instant impression that the man was smirking at him.
Of course, Draios was worried. He had spent the previous night fasting and praying yet again, and he had come to the inevitable conclusion that he knew how this conversation was going to end. The king would consider every word out of Delnamal’s mouth a heresy, immediately shutting his mind to the message the rightful King of Aaltah delivered. If Parlommir were here, as he was supposed to be, Delnamal could demonstrate his power on the crown prince, and there was every likelihood that the demonstration and the death of his heir would break Khalvin’s will. Draios was prepared to accept whatever fate the Creator willed for him, but he had to admit to a certain degree of enmity toward his older brother that would make his regrettable death perhaps not as regrettable to Draios as it ought to be. But with Parlommir not here, Draios would have to rely on Delnamal’s powers of persuasion, and of those he was not as confident. His father was undoubtedly pious, but he was far from a man of action. How likely was it that he would actually listen when Delnamal’s message called for launching a holy war?
“Trust me,” Delnamal said in a voice that sent a shiver down Draios’s spine. “I will convince your father to see things our way. And we don’t need your brother here for that.”
Draios would have offered a cutting comeback, but the anteroom door opened and the king’s secretary stepped out.
“His Majesty will see you now,” he said, then looked down his nose at Delnamal’s hunched figure. “Shall I have some refreshments brought for your guest while he waits?”
Draios gave the man a withering glare but didn’t deign to answer as Delnamal laboriously climbed to his feet. Draios could see in the secretary’s face that he wanted to bar the way. But the man was little better than a servant, and something he saw in Draios’s face made him flinch and step aside.
Draios swept into his father’s private audience chamber, which he used only when speaking with close friends and family, Delnamal trailing behind at a much slower and more laborious pace.
King Khalvin looked older than his years with his saggy jowls and the plethora of frown lines around his mouth and eyes. He was sitting at his desk, a Devotional resting in front of him and a cup of tea steaming at his side.
This private audience chamber was far more intimate than the huge public hall the king used for more formal audiences, but there was no mistaking that his father thought of this as a business meeting rather than a casual conversation with his son. Two palace guards flanked the open door, and two more were stationed behind the king’s chair. Draios had long ago given up being insulted by his father’s strict adherence to protocol. The king would send the guards away if asked, but it never occurred to him that their very presence was an affront. Draios was certain that his brother could request a private audience with the king and arrive to find the king’s guards stationed outside the room.
Draios bowed—that, even the crown prince did in the king’s presence—but he saw out of the corner of his eye that Delnamal did not. The disrespect made his teeth clench even while he simmered in his own resentment.
Then again, Delnamal still considered himself the King of Aaltah, so no doubt he felt himself King Khalvin’s equal. Despite having to sneak into the audience in Draios’s wake, and despite coming as a supplicant.
Draios rose from his bow to see his father scowling, which was the old man’s most practiced expression. Especially around Draios. The scowl
rested a long moment on Delnamal, who was still hidden behind his cloak and hood, before turning its full force on Draios.
“I was not aware you were bringing a guest,” Khalvin said, his voice dripping with disapproval. But it was more than disapproval that Draios read in his father’s expression; there was a certain wariness there, as well. Did he perhaps suspect that Lord Eldlin’s death and Draios’s subsequent—and hasty—departure from Khalwell were related? There would have been no evidence left behind to indicate that Eldlin’s death was anything but natural, but still…
Khalvin dismissed Draios from his consideration before Draios had mustered an answer to what was almost a challenge.
“You needn’t continue with the subterfuge, nephew,” he said to Delnamal. “I know where my son has been these last several days, and it has not been at the Shrine of the Holy Penitents.”
Delnamal tossed his head, causing the hood to slide down to his shoulders and reveal his hideous face. One of Khalvin’s guards flinched ever so slightly. Draios had to admit the first glimpse was shocking, though a palace guard should have shown no such reaction.
“It is good to see you again, Uncle,” Delnamal said, then took a seat without waiting for an invitation.
Draios smiled to see the way his father stiffened at the affront. Perhaps he still didn’t understand that Delnamal considered himself a king and equal.
Khalvin’s scowl deepened. “I wish I could say the same,” he growled. “I thought our agreement was clear.”
Delnamal nodded. “Yes, yes,” he said dismissively. “You wanted me to stay in the country and never be seen or heard from again.”
Khalvin leaned forward, planting both fists on his desk as his scowl turned into a glare. “I gave you shelter and money out of loyalty to my sister, but I can easily take both away. I can ship you back to Aaltah and let their regent and your erstwhile royal council decide what to do with you.”