A River of Royal Blood

by Amanda Joy

Aketo’s writing was precise, though a smudge of ink at the bottom obscured half of his name.

  Nearly an hour later I found myself in Asrodei’s Sandpits, straddling Aketo’s waist, sending up sprays of black dust as we grappled in the sand. Breathless at every look we shared, I fought like a demon.

  “I think you’ve won this bout,” he said through clenched teeth.

  I punched him once more in the side and pressed my forearm against his neck. One of his arms was pinned beneath my knee, the other fisted in the hem of my tunic. His knuckles rubbed against my bare hip. If I’d had a blade, his throat would be slit by now.

  I rolled off him and climbed to my feet. The sand was noisier—and more musical—than the dirt we’d fought on during the trip. I could always hear his attacks before they came, but it was difficult to move at his speed in the sand, so the difference was hardly felt.

  Aketo, of course, moved with his same careless grace. This was the first bout where I had bested him.

  I glanced at the swords cast aside a few feet away, trying not to think about it. “Shall we start with blades, Aketo?”

  “Evalina, please. We should talk—”

  “Another go, then?” I shook the sand from my hair and widened my stance.

  It took only a breath to find the music and then I was twisting as I kicked, aiming for his chest.

  Aketo ducked, his leg shooting out so quick, I had no time to deflect it. The breath went out of me and I landed on my bottom in the sand. Before I could jump to my feet, Aketo was standing over me. “Now, please—”

  I kicked his feet out from under him. Aketo fell half on top of me, cursing when I punched him in the side. He rolled off me and just lay in the sand with his eyes shut. He might’ve been sleeping if not for the quick rise and fall of his chest and the sweat beading his brow.

  We lay on our backs in the sand. Though we weren’t touching, I could feel the heat from his body. I watched Aketo while I could. The black-and-gold line of scales down the back of his neck met black sands, and the rings in his ears glinted in the dull light of the Pits. He rolled onto his side and looked at me. The gold of his eyes was the same as the gold of his scales.

  Gods, he was beautiful.

  He rubbed at a purplish bruise on his jaw. “Are you done now?”

  I sat up, hands fisting in the sand. “You said you wanted to dance. So let’s dance.”

  “I’d rather talk,” Aketo suggested.

  “If this is about my father, I do not want to know.” I did not want any more bad news just yet. I’d begun to feel guilty for ignoring Papa’s invitations and had agreed to meet him for dinner tonight. If there was something else my father needed to tell me, I wanted to hear it from him.

  “You can ask me whatever you wish, as long as you will agree to stop pummeling me.”

  I decided not to point out that he’d happily trounced me just days ago. “How does your magick work?”

  “I sense the emotions of those around me and with touch I can change those feelings.”

  “My sister’s magick is a bit like that. Her magick is named persuasion, but it is so much more insidious than that. She pushes her will into you. I’ve seen her magick make a courtier say and do things they wouldn’t have said or done without it.”

  “To me that doesn’t seem like my magick at all.” His fingers laced through mine. “Can I show you?”

  I looked at Aketo; his eyes were shut, his horns long and proud. “Yes.”

  I smelled cinnamon and orange blossoms as warmth spread from his hand into mine. It eased over my skin, coaxing a sigh from my lips. This feeling he’d given me was peace.

  “I should tell you, the more time I spend with a person, the more aware of their emotions I become. Usually it takes years, but with you it started when I saved you from the poison. And grew deeper when you saved me during the raid.”

  “Well,” I sputtered, “in truth, we saved each other. You’ve saved me twice now, so it is still uneven.”

  “I hope we can maintain the current ratio,” Aketo said, a slow, sly smile spreading across his face. “I wouldn’t want to get used to you saving me.”

  I was afraid that I wasn’t ever going to stop wanting to look at him, afraid of how his hand felt in mine.

  Aketo leaned over, and the hand that had been in mine moments ago slid up my arm to rest against my neck. “Would you mind terribly if I kissed you?”

  I closed the distance between us, the only way I could think to wipe the smirk from his face.

  “Oh.” He murmured a soft sigh of surprise against my lips, bracing one hand on my hip, drawing us tightly together. Something unspooled in me when I realized just how neatly we fit.

  Our heartbeats twined together until we were of one sound. His thumb moved in minute circles on the wing of my hip, his lips hot and instant against my mouth, stoking flames beneath my skin. My tongue slid along Aketo’s bottom lip, and a growl vibrated through his chest into mine.

  This, I thought. Why did I wait for this?

  He jerked his head away. “I can feel their attention,” he whispered right into the crook of my neck. “I only want to feel you.”

  We broke apart and I clenched my fists to keep from reaching for him again. I looked around to find my guards had mostly blocked us from view, but they were all looking over their shoulders, glancing furtively at the narrow space between us.

  I found that I hardly cared.

  * * *

  As we walked back to my chambers, I was pleased to observe how undone Aketo had become.

  When I tried to lace our fingers together once we left the Sandpits, he looked at me like I’d lost all control of my senses. I laughed before taking his hand. It wasn’t as if anyone who would have objected could have seen. The rest of the guard, including Falun, stood in a ring around us.

  I glanced at Aketo, trying to find some way to break the charged silence between us. He was smiling too, smiling like he had a secret trapped behind his lips. But as we rounded the corner to the royal quarters, a choked gasp came from his mouth. “Where are your father’s rooms?”

  “What?”

  “Eva.” His voice was guttural, pained. “Where are your father’s rooms?”

  “Not far from here. Why?”

  He spoke quickly, each word scrambling over the previous one. “I’ve spent enough time with King Lei that I can sense his feelings from here. He is in a great deal of pain.” He grabbed my arm. “We must go to him now.”

  I rocked back as if he’d struck me. I choked out curt instructions for the guard to fall away from me and pulled Aketo and Falun, the only guard I knew in my escort, aside. “We have to get to my father’s rooms.”

  Falun gave me a blank look. “What’s wrong?”

  “Something is wrong with my father,” I whispered, thankful I still had the presence of mind to whisper. I didn’t want the entire Fort to erupt into panic. That would only slow us.

  “How do you—”

  I pulled Aketo into a sprint. My heart threatened to burst from my chest with each step. I ran faster than I ever had in my life. Aketo suddenly faltered, eyes wide and confused, rolling like a startled horse.

  “Hurry,” he said, voice gone rough. “Hurry.”

  I threw everything into the next step, and the next step, and more into the ones after that. A strange numbness came over me when we reached the double doors leading to my father’s chambers. Aketo pulled the doors apart and then Falun appeared, shoving me behind him. There were weapons in all of our hands and I couldn’t remember retrieving them. I couldn’t even remember what turns and stairways had gotten us here.

  There were no soldiers outside his rooms, as horrible a sign as anything.

  I spotted three drops of blood on the woven rug carpeting the foyer. A whimper or a scream tore from my mouth and I pushed past them, so that I was the
first one to see the blood covering every inch of the bedchamber and my father’s broken body—his cut throat spilling blood as precious as rubies across the floor, and the jagged wound stretching from chest to navel.

  At first, I was sure it wasn’t real. All the blood and the magick and pain of the last days had gone to my head. But I blinked and blinked and everything was still shiny with freshly spilled blood.

  And I could smell it, the reek of death and fresh meat and filth. My stomach rolled as I stumbled forward.

  My heart gave one last shuttering beat and exploded in my chest.

  CHAPTER 23

  A SCREAM POURED from my mouth like a column of fire meant to burn the earth to ash. Aketo and Falun stood near me. I saw them, saw the guards rushing into the room, but couldn’t hear them.

  There was only one sound: blood in the carpet, squelching and sucking at my boots as I stumbled forward. There were only two feelings: warm blood soaking into my pants as I fell to my knees and the bristle of my father’s beard as I placed my hand on his cheek.

  “Papa?” I gasped. He was still warm, broadsword clutched in his right hand, and his eyes, blessedly, were closed. His skin free from the creases of worry he’d always worn. If I hadn’t had to move so carefully, trying not to touch any of the viscera spilling from his stomach, I could have believed he’d simply fallen asleep. “Papa, Papa, Papa.”

  My vision narrowed, blackness crowding out vivid color, but a sound drew my attention. My eyes zeroed in on the right side of the room. The edge of one of the tapestries hanging down to the floor fluttered.

  The one knife I had left flew toward it. I ran, leaping over a chest, upturning a table, dragging Papa’s sword, and screaming as I swung it in a great arc.

  The bottom half of the tapestry fell to the floor, finely woven and moving like water. The body behind it was that of a woman with ocher skin and a tangle of raven hair, her face veiled, gurgling, spurting blood from the chest I’d just cleaved in two.

  The sword clattered to the floor. I screamed and screamed until the black came again to crowd out all the red.

  * * *

  My eyes opened to Anali’s face, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed. I flipped over to the edge of the bed as spasms racked my empty stomach.

  The look on her face set me to chewing the insides of my cheeks. Her grief was an open wound, impossible to avoid. Her eyes were wide and shiny.

  Her hands moved without ceasing, adjusting her jacket, inching toward her sword. I had left her to deal with everything. I should have been able to handle it, I should have—

  “What do we know?”

  Anali blinked down at me. “There were six, including the one you killed. All Dracolan.”

  “The one I killed?”

  “The woman you killed was the sixth—”

  “What woman?” I remembered only seeing my father, kneeling next to him, and then—nothing.

  “One of the assassins, the only one your father and his guards hadn’t killed, had hidden behind a tapestry. Falun told me you saw her before the guard did and killed her.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to remember. There was a face, high yellow skin, and black hair, and the feeling of warm blood splattering across my chest.

  I forced myself to keep speaking. “Has anyone been in his rooms yet? Anyone besides you and the guard?”

  “I’ve kept everyone out so far, but I’ve told the Generals. I told them we wouldn’t move forward until you woke.”

  “What time is it?” Was it the same afternoon, evening?

  “You slept all night.” She hesitated. “It’s early afternoon.”

  My father had been dead nearly an entire day and I had slept through it. My father was dead, my father had been killed, my father, my father—

  No. I clenched my fists until my nails drew blood. “Give the Generals my order to keep my father’s room sealed until I can sort through his things. We’ll have to send people in to clean and attend to the—the bodies.” I closed my eyes. There was no part of me that wanted this, but delaying would be impossible. “Assemble the entire Fort in a few hours. I’ll have to announce what’s happened and choose an interim Lord Commander. I’m sure Papa had someone in mind. Then I suppose we’ll have to leave.”

  Anali bowed her head and helped me out of bed. Someone must have bathed me, because I wore fresh underclothes beneath the blankets.

  “Your Highness, I am so—” Anali began as soon as I’d stepped away from the bed.

  “Anali, I think for now we should skip all of that.” I only had to get through this. Just today, I reminded myself. Then I could dissolve.

  “Eva, your father—” Her voice cut off in a ragged sob. I noticed things in small degrees. Her white hair was undone, stuffed into a knot at the back of her head, matted and frizzy. Her jacket was rumpled, the buttons closed incorrectly. “Your father is gone and I—”

  “See, Anali, talking about it will only make things worse.” I would isolate the pain somehow. Until then, I would ignore it.

  I could not come apart until I had cared for my father. “Anali, I’m going to find out who did this.”

  “Your Highness, they were Dracolan. Everyone is already calling it an act of war.”

  “Do you think a team of Dracolan assassins could get into this Fort unaided? No, someone powerful is a part of this and they will see justice.”

  Mirabel always talked about how everyone had an inner core of strength, but didn’t realize it until they needed it. I would just have to find mine.

  And there was a thing I needed in order to do so. I couldn’t ignore my feelings when people around me had access to them. “Anali, I need you to keep Aketo and Baccha away in the next days.”

  She only stared at me, but finally nodded. “As you wish, Your Highness.”

  – III –

  KHIMAER MAGICK

  Of all the wonders in Myre, they kept this from us for nearly a century. The strange, illusive magick of their foremother—the most ancient of them all. The khimaer say they cannot teach us this power, but one wonders if this is the truth. Is it simply another matter of them hoarding power?

  —Journals of Kenyon Neion, Sorceryn among the first human settlers in Myre, from Old Lore and Magickes in the Age of the Godlings

  CHAPTER 24

  ROBES OF QUILTED cotton and cobalt organza hung heavy on my shoulders.

  The humming of the Sorceryn and a sea of courtiers and Myreans buzzed around me, sounding more like a hive of angry bees than was comforting. I should have hummed along with them, but my lips were shut tight. We stood on the banks of the Red River, gathered to mourn my father’s death. The sun was high, and the grand city wall of Ternain rose behind us, but the noise and energy of the city seemed far away.

  It had been two weeks since I returned to the Palace. I’d stayed at Asrodei for half a week to make arrangements before traveling to the capital, though I had not wanted to return.

  In those two weeks, I hadn’t spoken one word beyond what was required of me—pretending it was grief that kept my lips sealed and not fear of letting the unending anger spill out. Even as I tried, even as I knew my father deserved this tribute, this small thing I could give him, seeing him smoothly into death, no sound escaped me.

  I was playing the grieving Princess, empty but for my sorrow over my father’s death. Inside I was all rage—and I was helpless. But the show must continue.

  Isadore, Mother, and I were all painted accordingly—streaks of gold and white across our cheeks and under our eyes—as if we were all the same in our mourning. A bead of sweat rolled from my temple down to my chin and I almost hoped the dripping paint would stain the robes. The paint was chalky and oppressive and the combined heat of the robes and the sun made me light-headed and dizzy. I wanted to throw off the garments, wipe my face clean, and run back into the Palace before the Sorceryn lit th
e pyre.

  But I couldn’t.

  My fingers laced through my mother’s and my expression held only a pale imitation of the real pain I felt. That pain was a scream that lived deep within my chest. It never left me.

  I was dimly aware that I shook, muscles locked tight enough to cramp. My hands were like claws scrabbling at my mother. I wondered if I could squeeze her hand tightly enough for her to show a reaction in front of all these people. The King was so well loved; thousands had journeyed to Ternain once the news of his death spread. It felt like I was standing before everyone in Myre.

  And it all felt so wrong.

  Mother’s gaze didn’t waver from the Sorceryn, but I felt her attention shift to me. “Behave,” she breathed, in the same cadence and tone as the Sorceryn’s mourning chant.

  Thoughtless, I glared at her. She squeezed my hand so tight her nails cut into my flesh. Wasn’t she worried about the blood, ruining the perfect sight of us? Blood had no place among all this royal blue and white.

  Wasn’t she worried?

  “Behave,” she repeated. I glanced beyond her and watched a sneer flash across Isadore’s face. I would burn alive keeping this boiling rage inside.

  I looked back toward the pyre, but not before Isa’s eyes caught mine. They were swollen and rimmed in red, but when she looked at me, they grew cold.

  I shut my eyes and I could still see my sister, the one I knew well. Isadore and I were young, perhaps six and eight years old. We’d joined Mother before some ball we were both too young to attend. We knotted towels around our waists like gowns, relaxing with Mother in her luxurious dressing room, nearly the size of my entire suite. Five or six women floated around her, each applying a different cosmetic. Isa and I got into every pot of cream, every vial of pigment, and all her sticks of kohl.

  We’d hung necklaces around our heads like crowns and practiced our dancing.

  Mother had laughed at the mess we made and sent us back to our rooms painted, perfumed, and pampered from head to toe, chubby hands full of the fruit tarts she favored.