The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  Francie was alive. Her pulse was far from strong, but it was present. Vane moved her to the bed and sat with her unconscious form for half an hour, shedding silent tears and loathing himself more than he could ever have deemed possible.

  He hadn’t done a thing to stop Linstrom, to prevent him taunting her and then slicing open her neck as though it were an orange. That silence would have been inexcusable had Francie been a stranger, and Francie was….

  Francie was one of the people he held dearest. They rarely spoke alone, but he had been convinced for years he would have married her, had he not married August before Francie appeared at that interview for the Magic Council. And he’d let Linstrom bleed her dry.

  Vane should have blown his cover. What excuse did he have for not attempting to grab Howar, transport to Francie and grab her too, and then get out? Back to Podrar? To anywhere? If only Howar had been nearer, not clear across the library. If only Vane could have risked exposing his identity….

  No, he told himself. That hadn’t been an option, was never an option.

  Linstrom won’t only slit your throat, he’ll know the king’s aware of him and launch his assault the following hour.

  After thirty tortured minutes, Vane heard Francie stir. He grabbed her hand and told her not to move, just to lie there. “You’ll be all right. I’m Vane. I’m with you.”

  Francie opened her eyes and blinked. She tried to speak his name, but made no sound. Vane cursed and cast “Desfazair,” a spell to unwork or to end most incantations. That did away with Terrance’s muting spell.

  “Vane?” she croaked.

  “Listen, Linstrom tried to bleed you to death. I sent an enchanted stone to you, which is why he failed. It’s in your shoe, and it’s keeping you alive. I healed you, but you can’t take your shoe off, not for some days. You lost far too much blood. I think the stone replaced just enough to keep your heart beating. You’d die without the stone, you understand?”

  Francie nodded, then grimaced and raised a hand to her head. “Water,” she said, through swollen, split lips. Vane found a pitcher of clean water in the kitchen. He propped Francie up and helped her sip from a glass. As he lowered her to lie down, she protested, “Hold me. Please. Just hold me.”

  He was still covered in her blood. He hadn’t cleaned himself off yet, but she hardly seemed to care, so he held her. She needed to feel a friend close to her, and that small concession was the least he could do after forsaking her like he had. August would never resent the favor.

  Francie held her eyes closed and her head against his chest. “The vertigo,” she said. “It’s awful.” Her voice was weak, and it cracked, but he could understand her.

  “You’ll be all right. I promise, you’ll be all right. That Terrance, did he rape you?”

  “I never knew his name.”

  “The one who abducted you. Auburn hair and beard. He raped you?”

  “In my apartment. Yesterday.”

  Vane let out the strongest swear he knew.

  “He bound me by hand. Because he knew about my power.” The whole kingdom did. “He knew I’d relive his attack every moment my skin touched those knots. His hatred, his disdain for me…. They were in my head. Pulsing through my veins.”

  “Don’t think on that, Francie. I swear to you, I’ll see the monster pay. I’ll kill him myself if I have to.”

  “Vane, what’s going on? Where did he take me? Who were all those people? Is there…? Is this some kind of conspiracy?”

  “Rexson sent me as a spy, but don’t worry about that. Don’t think about anything that happened back there.”

  “And the future? Should I ignore that too? What if I have that snake’s child, Vane? Birth a sorcerer?”

  “You’ll have all the support you could ever want from me and August. From the crown, you understand? But we’ll announce your death in Podrar. Tomorrow. I can’t have my cover blown. I have to keep that monster close if I’m to take revenge.”

  Francie’s blackened eyes were still closed. “Say I’m dead,” she consented. “Say anything you must. I don’t care.”

  “Don’t forget your mother’s in Podrar.”

  My mother hates me. Brother does too. They don’t matter.”

  “You say that now.”

  “They don’t matter,” she insisted. “Don’t talk. Please don’t. Just hold me. And swear on Teena’s chickens you’ll take care of me. I’ve nobody else, Vane. Nowhere to go.”

  Every important childhood promise they had sworn on Vane’s aunt’s fowl. “I swear on Teena’s chickens, the council and I will take care of you.”

  Vane and Francie sat in silence until Howar burst in some time later. Thankfully, the baker was alone. He gaped to see Francie alive and Vane transformed to his true self.

  “You saved her?” he sputtered. “How did you possibly save her? The amount of blood….”

  Vane spoke over his ally. “Get the nearest doctor. Now. Can he be trusted?”

  “I imagine so,” said Howar. “He’d be on our side if he knew what Linstrom’s about, and he’s discreet. Most physicians are.”

  Vane ordered, “Go get him. Wake him. Drag him here if you must. What time is it?”

  Howar said, “Past midnight.”

  Vane swore. “I’m due at the Palace.” He’d promised Francie he wouldn’t leave her, and he wouldn’t. Not alone. “Run, Howar.”

  Howar returned in twenty minutes with a doctor and his young apprentice, a student of some kind.

  “I have to see the king,” Vane told his colleague. “He’ll think I’ve been killed. Francie, will you be all right? Until I can get back? You can trust these men.”

  “Hurry,” Francie urged. “You have to go, I know that. You should have gone a long time ago. But hurry back.”

  Vane warned the doctor to leave her shoe alone, finally took the time to vanish Francie’s blood from his clothing, and transported to the Palace stables.

  Vane found Gratton, the king, the queen, and Hune waiting for him in Rexson’s antechamber. Every face looked gray, and the room smelled vaguely of sick, as though someone had been ill. Gracia, perhaps: she looked grayer than the rest.

  Gratton gave Vane a reassuring nod, and the king clapped his duke on the bicep, to assure himself Vane truly had arrived. The queen fell back into an armchair, overcome by her relief, and Hune told his father, “I told you he’d come. Something held him up, that’s all.”

  “Francie,” said Vane. “I was with Francie. Rexson, they abducted her. They would have slaughtered her, but she’s alive. I managed to keep her so. My cover will be blown if we don’t announce her death, and tomorrow.”

  Vane explained the day’s developments. He spoke of Terrance’s diversion and Francie’s ordeal, of the decision to start the assault at the Partsvale guardhouse, and of Linstrom’s vow not to desecrate the Shrine of the Giver. He suggested the crown plan a quiet evacuation of women and children from Partsvale, by transport, in the hours before the attack. Then, and last of all, he spoke of Linstrom’s motives.

  “He claims you denied consideration to every sorcerer interested in the Magic Council. He’d swear it on the Giver’s Shrine, and his sorcerer supporters say the same. They say they all applied, all twenty of them, and none received a response from you. I can make no sense of it, Rexson. I perused the stack of applications after interviews. Every hopeful was considered, and there wasn’t a sorcerer among them. Not one, except for me and Zacry.”

  The king looked as puzzled as Vane felt. Hune seemed at a loss for words, he was so confused.

  “Your Majesty,” Vane said, “forgive the question, but you didn’t somehow…. You didn’t misplace the applications in question? Perhaps purposefully?”

  The king replied, “I’m not that foolish.”

  Vane swore, “I believe you. But I don’t understand. Linstrom’s grudge runs deep, and I can promise you, it’s genuine. What could explain…?”

  A female voice spoke from the corner. From the chair where
the queen had collapsed at Vane’s entrance. “I’m responsible,” it said.

  Vane turned his head to Gracia, and nearly gawked. He had never seen her arm shake, or her cheeks flare up to that unsightly dark shade, or her gaze seek the floor instead of the person she addressed. All three occurred just then.

  “This is my doing, on my head alone, though it seems the axe will fall on others. Rexson, I told your secretary you desired me to read all council applications, so that later, at your convenience, you and I could discuss them. I was curious. Nothing more than curious. When the first arrived from a sorcerer, though, my blood began to boil. It had been a sorcerer, a sorcerer from that cursed Enchanted Fist who took my sons from me. Blackmailed us.

  “Those wounds were still fresh. You know the horrors we endured: the risks we took to rescue the children, how uncertain success had seemed. I couldn’t look at that application without turning weak from fear at the thought of a sorcerer gaining and abusing your trust. I threw the packet in the fire. Every subsequent one from a sorcerer, I burned them all. The other applications I resealed and had brought to you. You never knew I’d seen one of them.”

  The room was silent for a good ten seconds as the queen paused, awaiting some kind of response. When she received none, she continued, still studying the rug:

  “There’s no excuse for what I did. Had I known what would come of it…. I’ve threatened the peace of your kingdom, Rexson. Vane, I’ve put you in great danger. August and your children too, perhaps, the Giver protect them! Francie Rafe, I’ve destroyed that’s woman’s life, and she’s the most dedicated member of any council I’ve had the pleasure to meet. That poor woman! I….”

  Vane told the queen, “Francie will recover, in body. There’s a doctor with her now. Her spirit will take longer to heal, I suspect, but she’ll get on, Gracia. She’s resilient.”

  Hune said, “You didn’t harm Francie, Mother. You had no hand in Linstrom’s doings, and those doings are unjustifiable. They are, no matter what explanations he….”

  “I should have foreseen what could happen, Hune. We both know that. Everyone in this room knows that. Gratton’s always been wary of magic, always, and not even he can speak a word in my defense.”

  Rexson told his wife, “What’s done is done, and Hune’s right. Misguided as your actions were, there’s nothing in them to justify abduction, rape, murder, and the terror and destruction of a village, perhaps multiple townships. You need to accept that, Gracia. You need to hold your head high through this, because Herezoth and I will need your support.”

  Gracia still could not look at a soul. “I’ll try.”

  Rexson lifted her head with his hand. “You’ll succeed,” he told her. “For the good of Herezoth, you must. If you feel responsible for this crisis, then you must find the strength to confront it like the rest of us. That’s only just. Consider it penance, for it’s the only way you’ll learn to live with yourself once this is done.”

  Gracia nodded. Rexson’s hand left her chin, but her posture, her gaze, they held steady as the king asked Vane his thoughts regarding a preemptive strike against Linstrom at the Hall of Sorcery. Vane considered the proposal.

  “It makes sense to bring the battle to him there, if we can. The trouble is his numbers. If they’re ever all together…. We’d need enough sorcerers to transport two hundred soldiers, more in a best-case scenario.”

  Rexson said, “The Enchanted Fist has recruited no sorcerers since we arrested their leadership for the kidnapping. I asked the Quins.” The queen lowered her eyes once more. “With you and Zacry, and your sorcery instructor: you’ll go to them tomorrow, Vane….”

  “I meet with Linstrom in the morning. I can go to them after.”

  Gratton asked the duke, “How old would your school’s first sorcerer graduates be? We’ll need them.”

  Vane racked his spinning, aching head. “The first three would be around twenty.”

  The king said, “That’s four from the school. You and Zacry make six.”

  The Duke of Ingleton groaned. “That’s a third what Linstrom has. If we had enough support, though….”

  Rexson asked, “Could the six of you transport two hundred men?”

  “In waves, perhaps. We could set up an ambush in the Hall. There’ll be no waiting outside, or we’d freeze to death.”

  To Vane’s surprise, Rexson smiled. “I know, son. I’ve seen the Hall of Sorcery.”

  Gratton reminded Vane, “Linstrom has two hundred supporters himself. If tonight revealed a pattern, they shouldn’t all be at the conference in the Hall you break up. What of the others?”

  “I don’t know,” said Vane. “I just don’t know. Listen, I’ve got to get back to Francie. Gracia, write August in the morning that you’ve spoken with me and I’m safe. That I’ll be going for Zacry, and he’ll go a long way to helping set this right.”

  Gracia forced herself to look Vane in the eye. The act cost her a visible effort. “Of course I shall.”

  * * *

  While Vane met with the royal family, Kansten was lying in a guestroom at Oakdowns, unable to sleep despite the fact that her bed was three times as comfortable as the one she used at home. She kept thinking of her family, and her brothers in particular.

  Kansten had realized, leaving home, that she’d always disdained her brothers to a fair degree. Jealous of their magic—Hune’s assertion of her envy was nothing surprising or unknown to her—she had turned up her nose at their dismissal of Herezoth. Allowed herself to feel superior on that account. Kansten might have no powers, but at least she had no intention of snubbing her family’s true home: the place they belonged, as anyone could have told them and the crueler of Kansten’s schoolmates had reminded her often in her youth. Somehow, in reading history books and staring at maps, a complete image of Herezoth had escaped her. Her Uncle Zacry, he sat on the Magic Council but never discussed the challenges of his work, at least not in front of his nieces and nephews. Vane visited often but was equally tight-lipped. He brought stories about his children, and gifts, and asked about Kansten’s latest scrapes or accomplishments. Kansten had never suspected the depth of all he’d endured in the last ten years.

  Trapped with August all day, Kansten had asked questions, and Vane’s wife had jumped at the opportunity to speak of anything other than her husband’s present adventures. She’d been forthright about the past: the protests Vane had faced when he’d joined the Magic Council; the hundreds of death threats he’d received; the attacks on his property, once he’d slain the Duke of Yangerton in self-defense, that Oakdowns had only withstood thanks to Vane’s magical protections around the manor. Yangerton would have killed Vane, had Zacry Porteg not been present to stop his bleeding out.

  August explained they had placed the Magic Council’s school, an institution for the magicked and magicless to learn together, in her mansion in Carphead because no one else would support their goal. Vane was a private person, but he’d released the particulars of his early life before the school took in students, to draw attention to himself and away from the audacity of the Magic Council’s project. Seven years after it first opened its doors, the Count of Carphead still loathed Vane on his academy’s account, for the controversy it had brought to his feet.

  Kansten had always admired Vane for returning to Herezoth. Had never understood why her Uncle Zacry refrained from doing likewise, or why her blasted brothers claimed time and again they had no interest in the place. She had never come close to understanding what Vane’s life was here: how hard he pushed himself, what threats he still endured, how little credit anyone was willing to give him for his trouble. Now, Kansten found herself full of confusion and conflicted emotions when she thought of Vane. She respected the man still, perhaps more than ever, but why did he suffer this? Didn’t he realize he could have stayed in Traigland? Was it a matter of pride?

  Herezoth itself had been needed to break Kansten’s arrogance and derision in the face of her brothers. All that had occurred since
her arrival, every bit of it had chipped away at Kansten’s armor, at the shell of self-importance with which she had coated herself all her life. Walten and Wilhem, she had grown up thinking, were fools. They didn’t understand where they came from like Kansten did. They didn’t have the wits, or the courage, even to be curious. Kansten might lack their sorcery, but Herezoth refused to call the sorcerers. It was Kansten Herezoth beckoned, and Kansten, despite her magical impotence, had felt powerful and secure in that knowledge. She had deemed it an honor.

  Now Herezoth had ripped away the power and security she’d imagined for herself. She could make no sense of Vane and his existence in this festering kingdom, of his insistence to raise his sorcerer children here. Walten and Wilhem, they no longer seemed fools to Kansten. Why wouldn’t they turn their backs on Herezoth? What had the land of their parents’ birth ever given them, besides a peaceful childhood in Traigland because of their mother’s exile from Herezoth’s shores? Herezoth would never welcome any Porteg. It certainly hadn’t welcomed Kansten.

  “You know, I heard Kora Porteg of all people’s responsible for this.”

  “The coat of arms? I’d believe it. Guess the sorceress is one of those.”

  The first conversation Kansten had the luck to overhear, and it was nothing but insults against her mother. Against the woman who had saved this place, who had risked her life for it and been thrown out instead of thanked when Herezoth no longer needed her protection.

  Wilhem and Walten had been the sensible ones all along. The ones with the instinct to recognize Herezoth’s true nature. The ones with magic. The ones with bloody magic….

  They were the gifted ones. So what did that make Kansten?

  * * *

  As Hune left his father’s antechamber to head toward Valkin’s, he stopped momentarily as his head spun, supporting himself against the wall. Then he moved on. Vane’s revelations had jarred him, but not as much as the queen’s; he would have to tell his brothers they had discovered Linstrom’s motive.