The Fiery Crown

by Jeffe Kennedy

  The guard’s drawn sword came into view first as he scanned the landing. One more step. Come to papa. He eased out, and I struck.

  He ducked in time, agile on the steps, and shouted, “Esca—” His shout broke off on a gargle as Sondra’s blade buried itself in his throat. My bagiroca connected with his skull a moment later—too fucking late to stop the warning shout—and he fell, careening down the steeply spiraling stairs, sword clattering.

  “Run,” I said. Sondra grabbed up the guard’s dropped sword as she passed, ushering Agatha along. Cutting the man’s throat with Sondra’s blade, I left him there—not worth the time to hide the body—and chased after the pair of them. As soon as I caught up with them at the bottom, Sondra eased open the door, scanned the area, and nodded to me.

  Taking the lead again, Agatha dashed out. “This way.”

  We ran across the open space, making no attempt to hide. Though she’d lost her armor and wore a shift, with her long hair and fierce mien Sondra couldn’t pass as a servant, not even if she gave up the sword. She clutched it with such ferocity that I knew I couldn’t ask her to relinquish it. We would be fighting our way out from here on.

  The quiet back halls gave the illusion of safety, but we jogged along, ears pricked for the sounds of alarm or pursuit. We wound down, ever deeper, until I was sure we had to be well belowground. These halls were barely lit, with a feeling of stale disuse, and we passed no one else. “Where are we going?” Sondra hissed.

  I shrugged, but Agatha glanced back, her face ghostlike in the dimness. “The wizards’ workroom. Her Highness will be there. They always stored their experimental subjects where they could be easily accessed.”

  Sondra made a choking sound but said nothing else. I was glad of it, because I had enough trouble wrestling down the howling creature in me that wanted to rend and tear. Like a caged wolf, Lia’s lilting words mocked me, and I missed her with the despair of a thousand deaths.

  “Here.” Agatha stopped by a door. “I can’t—” She broke off with a strangled squeak. “I can’t go in.”

  Figuring she meant the knob wouldn’t turn, I tried the handle. “It’s not locked.”

  “No.” Her voice was small. “Nobody goes in there if they don’t have to.”

  Oh, Lia. I glanced at Sondra. “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  “Get out now,” I told Agatha, but she shook her head.

  “I’ll wait. You’ll never find your way. I can do that much.” When her hollow gaze met mine, I realized she knew what we’d find in those rooms.

  Sondra took a flanking position on the door, her makeshift blade in hand, and nodded her readiness. I eased the door open, finding the room empty of people, lit by a few shielded sconces. It looked like the alchemist’s workroom, back in the tower at Keiost—tables and desks littered with documents, a few bits of scaffolding on taller benches with glassware and metal instruments.

  Though the place seemed unoccupied, Sondra gestured to a doorway, moving silently in that direction. I followed along, keeping my senses alert. The place stank of … fresh blood, and bowels, and death. And also of something essentially green, like fresh leaves crushed on a garden path.

  My heart broke all over again, knowing Lia had died in this horrible, windowless place.

  Sondra looked back from the doorway, her face such a rictus of grief that I knew what she’d seen—and that it was worse than my imaginings. She cleared her throat. “Conrí, maybe you shouldn’t—”

  “I can handle it,” I said, and pushed past her before I lost my nerve.

  The sight nearly brought me to my knees. But I could hardly turn away from Lia. I should be able to at least witness what she’d had to endure.

  She lay on a slab of stone, pale and still as cooled wax. Chains and straps dangled from the corners, but they’d done the courtesy of releasing her in death. Her left hand was gone at the wrist, her arm ending in a blood-soaked bandage stained brown with old blood. Just above it, the orchid that had been on her ring seemed to be fastened to her arm, but it lay wilted and limp, devoid of color. Dead as she was.

  Lia seemed smaller than ever, no more than a dried leaf, and her beautiful face was both swollen and hollow, marred with terrible bruises. Devoid of makeup, her scalp bare, she’d never looked more vulnerable. Her real hair had grown in more, and the sight of it carved an even greater hole in me. The new tendrils and vines hung withered, breaking off like spring flowers killed by late frost.

  “Oh, my love,” I whispered, running tender fingers over her cheek. “What have they done to you?”

  “They were trying to take the ring,” Sondra said beside me. “I wasn’t sure if I should warn you…” She couldn’t finish, sounding as broken as I felt.

  “It’s all right.” I couldn’t say more.

  “She asked—She made me promise that if She died, I’d do my best to burn Her body.”

  “No.”

  “Conrí, I promised.”

  “Then I’m overruling Her. She’s going home to Calanthe.” I pulled out the extra burlap sack we’d brought, and I gathered up her frail body, carefully sliding her into it, though she was cold and long since passed being uncomfortable. I tied the top and lifted her into my arms. She weighed even less in death than in life. “Come with me, love. Let’s take you home.”

  As I turned, I saw something under a glass bell nearby. “Is that her hand, and finger?”

  Sondra looked, too, and grimaced. “Apparently they saved them.”

  Something tickled at my memory, an odd impulse. I wouldn’t leave any part of Lia here. “Bring them.”

  “Conrí, I—”

  “Please, Sondra.”

  “Fine.” She sounded like she thought I’d lost my mind, but she complied. She tucked the finger in with the severed hand, Lia’s jeweled nails sparkling in macabre contrast, and wrapped them in cloth. She picked up the sword again.

  “Sondra, we have to try to sneak out as servants if possible. You have to leave the sword.”

  She held it tightly, clenching her jaw. Then shrugged, as if it didn’t pain her to be defenseless, and tossed the sword aside.

  “I have the blade you made,” I offered.

  “No.” She spotted what looked like a walking stick, solid and battered, propped in a corner. “This will work.”

  I didn’t argue. We didn’t have time, and at least it was a concession. Not the last one, either. “Can you cover your hair—or braid it?”

  She stalked to a mirror, glowering at herself. Then picked up a knife and started hacking at her glorious hair.

  “Sondra, I didn’t—”

  “It’s hair, Conrí. She lost Her fucking hand and joked about it. She lost Her life. I promised I’d get Her body out of here. If losing some hair helps, that’s the least I can do.” She cut the hair off close to her scalp as she talked, then gathered it all up and tucked it into a sack with Lia’s hand. Giving me her lethal grin, she faced me, looking so much like the girl back on Vurgmun that I nearly couldn’t breathe. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Outside the door, Agatha took one look at Sondra’s shorn hair, then at my burden, and nodded in grim resignation. “Any sound of alarm?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “But we wouldn’t hear, down here. Up on the main level is where we’ll face the worst danger.”

  We followed her out, the winding egress seeming to take even longer. Though I hated to desecrate Lia’s corpse, I had to put the sack over my shoulder as we came to the more heavily traveled sections of the citadel, so it would look like a manservant’s burden. The vurgsten bomb bounced heavily against my back with her shifting weight, and I prayed that it wouldn’t go off.

  I could still use it.

  The place was waking up, more servants in evidence as they carried heated water and, in some cases, platters of food. A group of guards, weapons drawn, jogged down a main hall, passing the doorway of an intersecting hall. “We need to hurry,” I murmured to Agatha.

 
She didn’t comment on my obvious remark, simply kept on at her same pace. Sondra shuffled along, head down, leaning on the walking stick. Still, she drew a curious glance or two, and I readied my bagiroca to fly and myself to run.

  We made it all the way to the Slave Gate without more trouble than that, though I was soaked in a greasy, nervous sweat by that time. Unfortunately, there we joined a queue of servants, slaves, and tradesfolk lined up to leave the citadel. From my height, I could see over most of the heads that the guards were questioning each person, sometimes examining missives they presented—presumably identification or permission—and, worse, rifling through any bags. Beyond them, out the tantalizingly open gates, the sky showed dark still, but with glimmers of predawn light.

  “Can we exit another way?” Sondra murmured.

  Looking near tears, Agatha shook her head. “This is the least guarded gate. I’d hoped we’d be early enough that there’d be a short line. The cows need milking,” she added for the benefit of anyone listening.

  Sure enough, the man ahead of us glanced back, grimacing. “Something about a guard alarm. Dunno if it’s real or a drill. But I hoped to deliver my catch and get back in time for early tide. Doesn’t look good now.”

  I shifted my burden to my other shoulder. We’d have an easier time without Lia’s corpse. Without that, I’d stay behind to kill Anure and let Sondra escape with Agatha. But I couldn’t leave her body behind for those wizards to dissect. And the orchid … it might be dead along with Lia, but every instinct screamed at me that if those wizards had wanted it badly enough to do all this, then we didn’t want them to have it.

  Slowly—far too slowly—we crept forward. The line forming behind us in the narrow passage sealed our decision. We couldn’t reverse direction without disturbance, and thus calling attention to ourselves. The light outside the open gate grew as the sun rose. Soon, someone would come to relieve those guards, maybe with Sondra’s description. Or looking for Lia’s corpse. If we could just get her out …

  I didn’t see how. We’d just have to break our way through. They delayed the fisherman in front of us for some time, questioning several things on his paperwork, then admonishing him at length for the lapses. Finally they let him go and it was our turn.

  I shifted Lia to my left shoulder, acting wearied, and put my hand on my bagiroca.

  “Your master and destination?” the guard asked, giving the three of us a frown.

  “We answer to Lord Ryder,” Agatha answered. “He sends us to convey these bundles and this slave to his family in the township.”

  “Where’s your permission?”

  “Syr Guard, our master was in his cups last night and sleeps still. He passed out before writing the permission, but he was most emphatic that we leave by dawn. I didn’t dare wait for him to wake. Now we are already late and I fear his reprisals.” Agatha peered up at the guard, her eyes anxious and hopeful.

  “Hmph.” He turned his gaze to me. “What’s in the sack?”

  “Syr,” Agatha said, laying a beseeching hand on his sleeve. “Lord Ryder said it was private. I didn’t dare ask. He gave me this coin, to pay the gate toll.”

  With a flick of fingers, the guard pocketed the coin Agatha produced. “I can waive the permission, but I have to examine your bags. You, oaf, lay that sack down here and open it.”

  I shuffled forward, eyeing the open air beyond the guard, bagiroca ready. Sondra, well acquainted with my thinking, shifted subtly, changing her grip on the walking stick, and edged Agatha with her, so they stood on the daylight side of the guard. I made a show of struggling with the bundle to give them time, making sure the other guard was well occupied. I tensed to swing the bagiroca. We’d have a few seconds to run, and a long open space to cross.

  We couldn’t make it.

  We had to.

  “Hurry it up.” The guard jabbed me with his metal baton. He peered at me more closely. “You don’t look like a manservant. What—”

  “I assure you, he is,” a smooth voice said. A golden-haired man in elegant clothes and a jeweled walking staff swept up from the outside. “These three are mine and you’re delaying them. Agatha—I specifically told you by dawn!”

  “Yes, Lord Ryder,” Agatha murmured, head bowed. She’d recovered faster than Sondra and I did, but we hastily averted our faces, covering our immense surprise—and knee-watering relief—at seeing Ambrose.

  23

  The strange intervention had gotten the attention of the other guard, and I braced for a fight. Then they both nodded with calm expressions. Neither seemed inclined to question the outrageous possibility that an apparent nobleman had come to the Slave Gate to fetch his servants. “Of course, Lord Ryder. Apologies for the delay. Move along, you three.”

  Ambrose strutted off and we followed meekly behind. None of us dared ask the wizard where he’d come from. We hadn’t had time to explain to Sondra how thoroughly Ambrose had disappeared in the aftermath of the battle at Cradysica, so she went along with the subterfuge easily enough. And Agatha, well, she seemed practiced at playacting.

  I tried to keep quiet, and did until we had passed the township, heading up the road to where we’d left the rowboat. Then I couldn’t stand it any longer. I stepped up my pace to Ambrose’s side. “Holy fucking Sawehl, Ambrose! Where have you been?”

  “I was otherwise occupied.”

  “Doing what?”

  He slid me a look. “Temper, Conrí. It’s a very long story. Do you really want to hear it now, or would you prefer I concentrate on making sure we escape?”

  Cursing under my breath, I dropped back, taking up the part of dutiful manservant again. Sondra raised a questioning brow at me, but I shook my head and she subsided. It turned out to be a lovely morning, which got prettier the farther we walked from the citadel, the countryside of Yekpehr growing lush and well tended away from the jagged rocks of the point the citadel sat on.

  I studied everything, laying it down in my memory so I could come back and retrace my steps once I gave Lia over to Kara’s reliable care. That distracted me from dwelling on how I carried Lia’s dead body. And that I might as well have killed the Queen of Flowers with my own hands.

  My doom, to destroy every last thing of beauty and worth in the world. Anure and I were much alike, as it turned out. All I could do was understand that, and use it to kill him.

  The sun had grown warm and high by the time we made it to the rowboat, where we’d hidden it under some driftwood on the beach. A flimsy and fanciful thing that matched the yacht, it would barely hold the four of them, no matter how light Lia’s body. No surprise, Kara hadn’t left, though it was well past the time I’d told him to leave us for dead. Stubborn fool. The Last Resort glittered at anchor offshore, where the fancy ship would surely draw attention soon. I wanted to curse Kara for the risk, and also kneel in gratitude that he’d stayed.

  But he and I had already said our goodbyes.

  I set down the sack with the vurgsten bomb, laid Lia’s body in one corner of the boat, then helped Agatha in. Sondra steadied Ambrose, who settled himself next to the sack holding Lia. He hadn’t asked, so I figured the wizard knew what had happened to her. Sondra helped me push the boat into the water. She hopped in, the thing sinking ominously low. Sondra held out a hand, but I shook my head, giving them another push.

  “Conrí!” Sondra called in hushed, hoarse tones.

  “I’m going back to finish this,” I told her, shouldering the sack with the bomb, my own throat unexpectedly tight. “Goodbye. Take care of Lia.”

  “Get in the boat, Conrí,” Ambrose said genially enough, but eyes emerald bright.

  “It will sink.” I pushed again, but the little boat didn’t budge that time, the currents swirling around it in circles that looked all wrong.

  “No, it won’t,” he corrected, as if speaking to a slow student. “Get in.”

  “I’m going back,” I repeated, “to kill the toad.”

  Ambrose fixed me with that penetrating gaze. “
You deserted Queen Euthalia once for your revenge. Will you repeat your mistake?”

  “Lia is dead.” I meant to say it flatly, but my voice took on a creaking hollow sound, sobs threatening to crack my chest. Vesno’s howl came across the water, echoing me. I shoved futilely at the boat, ducking my head so they wouldn’t see the fearsome Slave King weep like a child.

  “We don’t have time for your dramatics,” Ambrose snapped. “Get in the boat now, or we’re all in serious trouble.”

  “Conrí,” Sondra said, her face ashen. “Please.”

  “No.” I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “I’m here. I can get inside the citadel. There won’t be another opportunity like this.”

  “Just like there wasn’t another opportunity like we had at Cradysica?” Sondra bit out. “I love you, Conrí, and I’ll follow you to the end of the world, but you and I were wrong there. And Her Highness paid the price.”

  “Exactly. I got Lia killed. I failed you all. I have Agatha’s weapon.” I nodded at her. “This way I don’t have to worry about the delay on the trigger.”

  “It will kill you,” Agatha said flatly.

  “I know.” I looked forward to it.

  “Conrí.” Sondra gasped my name. “Don’t do it. We’ll find another way. There are things still to live for.”

  I shook my head. She wouldn’t understand that a world without Lia had lost all its color. Even the driving need for vengeance had vanished. I was already the walking dead. “The least, last thing I can do is go back and take Anure out.”

  “The least you can do,” Ambrose declared, “is get in this boat. Please join us, Conrí.”

  Before I realized it, I’d heaved myself over the side of the little boat, feeling the flimsy craft shudder under my weight. Ambrose returned my glare. He’d magicked me. Wonderful. “Happy now?” I ground out.