Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

  I frowned and listened as hard as I could. I heard nothing but the whistle of the wind, the crash of waves, and Arsenault’s weeping. I wanted to go to him, but the man put a hand on my arm as if he could hear my thoughts.

  “The ravens. Do you hear them?”

  And then I could. Their cawing made my stomach clench. On the beach, one dove out of the night to alight near the dead man’s head. Arsenault shouted and lunged at it.

  “His battle is bigger than you know,” the deer-man said. “You’re part of it. Kyrra. Fortune.”

  “I’ve brought him nothing but ill fortune,” I said. “Why doesn’t he just walk away from this fight? He’s a gavaro. He bears us no allegiance. We could leave—”

  The deer-man turned to look at me. His black eyes were level. “Would you do that?”

  I let out my breath. “No.”

  He turned back to watch Arsenault. “This is but one battle in a much larger war. As well call you Destiny.”

  I snorted. “Is there really such a thing? Fortune is fickle. I may be a pawn, but I know why. It has nothing to do with gods.”

  “Jaded, are we?”

  “Somewhat,” I agreed. Then I sighed. “What war are you talking about?”

  “He’s beset by ravens.”

  There were ravens all around the body now, swooping down out of the sky—not to eat from the body but to peck and claw at Arsenault. He waved his arms, drew his sword, but little by little, they chased him away. He stumbled down the black beach, shouting something that sounded like a name.

  Sella!

  He was calling his wife.

  Before I knew it, I had risen to my knees. But the deer-man pushed me back down.

  “Don’t make me watch this anymore,” I said, “if you’re not going to let me do anything about it.”

  “But you can do something about it. From here, the dead man looks as if he is the Sacrifice, but I tell you—he is not. He is merely the tool, the wedge of Fortune.”

  I began to grow angry. “And where, then, is she? Where is the goddess for whom I am named? Does she do this to all men, then, arrange their lives for them and walk away while they mourn?”

  “Your Fortune is an elusive goddess,” the deer-man said in a low voice. “But do not cast aside her patronage so quickly. The other gods may try to pull you in other directions, but you belong to her. And she will make use of you as she sees fit.”

  “But for my heart, of course,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice. “Which is yet mine to give.”

  “A human heart may make all the difference.”

  I pushed myself up. “Talking to gods makes my head hurt. I’m going to die in the morning; what will you tell me then?”

  The deer-man climbed to his feet and put a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him in surprise. “Follow your heart where it leads. The path may be rocky, but the road will be right.”

  He squeezed my shoulder, the way a father would. Then he stepped back and brought the bone horn to his lips.

  The sound that poured out of it swallowed me. I closed my eyes, gasping, and opened them to the rattle of keys at the door. The painting of the deer-man glowed red in the dim sliver of light. Then Verrin threw the door open and that vision died in the yellow glow of his candle.

  “Your father sends for you,” he said, his face somber. “I’m to escort you to the courtyard.”

  Chapter 32

  Adalus’s words from that long-ago dream ring in my head as Lobardin leads me to my old chambers. Even while I was fleeing across the countryside with Mikelo, I could pretend I was still Hunter. But now I must admit that I have become Prey.

  Both my hands hurt. Which scares me.

  “Will you gloat now?” I ask Lobardin.

  Lobardin winds a rope in his hands as he walks. His hands still and his eyebrows lift in surprise, which isn’t the reaction I expect. “While I must confess a certain curiosity about what went on in that room,” he says, “you’ve blood on your shoulders, Kyrra.”

  Damn.

  “From the wound you gave me.”

  “If you hadn’t fought so hard.”

  “What did you expect me to do? Collapse in a simpering heap at your feet?”

  He gives me a sharp, black glance. “No. I don’t think I expected that. But must you throw yourself at everything so mindlessly?”

  I lift my arms to wipe the nervous sweat from my upper lip with my sleeve. “This from the man who pursues his own vengeance without thought.”

  “Oh, I assure you,” he says, smiling but with his teeth gritted and his lips drawn too tight, “I pursue my vengeance very thoughtfully.”

  He opens the door to my old rooms and gestures me in like a gentleman. I keep my gaze on him the whole time. My legs are shaking and I want nothing more than to sit, but there is something in his tone that makes me nervous.

  How deeply am I involved in his quest for vengeance? I’ve elaborated my own fantasies of revenge often enough that I know what I’d do if I wanted to injure Arsenault, if I were in Lobardin’s shoes.

  “Is Arsenault really in the old prison?” I ask abruptly as we pass through the sitting room—a blur of purple—and into the bedchamber, where he maneuvers me with a hand on my back. I shift away from him and sit down in a chair. Not on the bed. These are my old rooms, but I barely look at them.

  “Would I tell you if he wasn’t?”

  I move my head too fast and the pain makes me grit my teeth. My vision skews and realigns, and Lobardin is kneeling down next to me, the rope coil slung over his shoulder, reaching out to gather my hair in his hand.

  “No,” I say, pulling away from him. But that just brings fresh pain and more vertigo. The saliva that pools in my throat warns me I’m going to vomit. I try to swallow it, to keep it down with my hand on my mouth, but it shoots out through my fingers and spatters the skirt of my dress, my shoes, the orange-and-red Tiresian carpet that softens the stones of the floor.

  My rooms used to be azure blue.

  As if I’ve just opened my eyes, I see the room in one quick, dizzying sweep—the blood-orange curtains swept back from the bed, the carmine satin bedspread, the Rojornicki pillows with their hunting scenes of stags and pheasants.

  Lobardin kneels beside me, watching me.

  “I’ll get someone to clean this up,” he says softly.

  I don’t say anything. He stops and digs something out of his pocket. For a moment, I think he’s drawing a knife, and I flinch.

  But it’s a rag. He pours some water into the washbasin beside the bed, dips the rag, and wipes my mouth with it. The roughened tips of his fingers brush my lip.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  His mouth quirks as he wads the rag up, dirty side in. “I thought you might want a clean mouth. Though after listening to you curse me in a number of different languages, I do realize how difficult that might be.”

  “Why should you care, though? You didn’t care when you hit me over the head. You didn’t care when we were in the coach.”

  “Kyrra,” he begins, then stops and glances over his shoulder at the door. Then back at me. Thoughtfully. “The Prinze trod on you.”

  “What should that matter? You’ve thrown your lot in with them.”

  He shakes his head, vehemently. “No,” he says. “It’s not like that. Cassis has genuinely changed. Would the Cassis of years ago defy Geoffre? You of anyone should know what that means.”

  “And you expect me to believe that Cassis isn’t going to crumble as soon as his father marches up that hill? That he’s going to risk being put out of the inheritance, cast off, and stripped of his titles, without recourse to the Circle? Do you honestly think Cassis could live that way, Lobardin?”

  “Why hasn’t Geoffre done that already? Why let Cassis escape to fortify himself in a castle like this? Why send you to take care of the problem?”

  I flex the fingers of both hands and stare at my knuckles for a moment. “Because he wants to keep it quiet; th
at’s why. Because he doesn’t want to disgrace the name of his House with such scandal, or invite rumormongering—and he probably knows Cassis will break once he sees Geoffre arrayed in force.”

  “Ah.” Lobardin grins, not one of his long, jaded grins but one lit with hope. “But Cassis holds the high ground. Or have you remained ignorant of tactics?”

  He baits me. I draw in a deep breath to still my tongue. When I have it under control, I say, “What does it have to do with me? And why do you care now?”

  “In the coach, there was Arsenault. Here, it’s just you.”

  I go still. Once again, I feel the tips of Lobardin’s fingers against my mouth. I can almost taste the salt of his blood, from that long-ago time when he kissed me to retrieve Jon’s letter.

  “And what should that matter?” I say.

  “I’ve never blamed you, Kyrra. It’s just war that makes us do things we don’t want to.” He looks up at me from beneath his lashes. “I didn’t mean to hit you that hard. Truly, I didn’t. Surely, you can understand battle rage.”

  “What do you want from me, Lobardin?”

  He laughs, softly. “You’re so wary, Kyrra. Like a cat.”

  “Should I be otherwise?”

  He sobers. “But you’ve changed too. I can’t begin to predict you anymore. The things you do aren’t rational. It’s more than that arm.”

  It is the arm, a voice whispers in my head. This won’t do. I try my best to keep my gaze on Lobardin’s face.

  “So says the man who’s gone over to his enemies. What did Geoffre do to you, Lobardin?”

  He stumbles to his feet. “I am not Geoffre’s! How many times do I have to say it before you believe me?” He hurls the rag to the floor. It bounces and rolls on the soiled carpet.

  “I side with Cassis because Cassis will bring Geoffre down—haven’t you been listening? Gods, Kyrra!” He paces, runs a hand through his hair, whirls to confront me again. “If you think I would sell myself to that bastard—”

  “You tried to sell Arsenault to him.”

  That brings him up short. “I never tried to sell Arsenault.”

  “You and Ilena. However it was that she discovered Arsenault was spying on the Prinze, you convinced her she ought to go to Geoffre. To give Arsenault away.”

  I rise from the chair. My first steps are unsteady, but I keep walking and my dizziness evens out.

  “Ilena was only a toy to you, like a doll. But she felt much more strongly for you. If it weren’t for her, Arsenault could have kept his secret, and who knows what he would have been able to do. Maybe even kill Geoffre the way Jon thought you could.”

  Lobardin stares at me as if he’s never seen me before.

  “Kill Geoffre?”

  “That’s what Jon planned. When the time was right. Both Jon and Arsenault thought you could be an assassin. But my father wanted to avoid war at all costs—any war, even one that Geoffre didn’t lead. That’s why he sent you away.”

  Lobardin’s mouth pulls down. “She did it, then? She really went to Geoffre?”

  I want to hurl something at him. But there’s nothing at hand. “How can you be so thick-headed? It wasn’t Arsenault’s fault!”

  “He never thought I would live if I killed Geoffre. He and Jon were going to send me on a suicide attempt. You know it’s true, or Arsenault would have just done it himself.”

  “He didn’t have the chance.”

  “Well, he didn’t have the chance to set me up, either, did he?”

  Lobardin takes a deep breath and musses his hair, then leans against the door and folds his arms across his chest.

  “All I wanted to do was for Ilena to have a bit of blackmail. Which was much more her style…although you must admit she would have made a good householder. I had my suspicions about Arsenault from my time on the Talos, and I knew she liked to eavesdrop. It wasn’t hard to see how she felt about Arsenault, and how furious it made her that he chose you. She jumped at the chance to find him out. I thought it was because she wanted to coerce him into her bed. But good for her if she took it further. I guess having a serf girl expose all his plans would have taken some of the smugness out of Jon.”

  “She didn’t,” I say. “I killed her.”

  Never have I managed to take Lobardin so completely by surprise. All the artifice strips from his face in an instant. “You…what?”

  “I said, I killed her.”

  I fake a grin. Lately, I’ve begun to make myself sick.

  I’ve never been proud of killing Ilena. I did it only to protect Arsenault. But if I can get Lobardin away from that door, I can run past him. So, let him see something else in me, anything that will get me to the door.

  I take a step toward Lobardin. “Did you hear me? I said, I killed her. I killed her so she wouldn’t tell Geoffre. She said she was going to do it because she loved you, but I loved Arsenault more.”

  My throat tightens before all the words are out. Have I ever admitted that to anyone? And to say it to Lobardin now—

  Lobardin is staring at me, aghast. “She was just a nattering titmouse; she didn’t mean— Gods, why did she have to take me so seriously?”

  He is still standing in front of the door. I won’t be able to shove him out of the way. Frustration drives my next words out. “You threw away the life of a girl and all because of lies?”

  It’s the wrong thing to say. Anger burns out all the other emotions on his face. I try to dodge out of his way, but damn this head wound, I wobble, and he grabs me up by both my arms and jerks me to him.

  “Arsenault’s lies killed her,” he hisses viciously into my face. “Not mine.”

  I drive my manacled hands upward toward his crotch, but he propels me backward and tosses me down on the bed. Then he climbs on top of me.

  I dig my elbows into the mattress, but he has a rope.

  He bends my arms up and leans on them though I thrash and kick, and then he binds them to my chest. My legs he drives apart and keeps useless with his knee.

  “Do you want to know what Geoffre did to me, Kyrra? Do you want to know what he made me?”

  There is nothing in his black eyes that I recognize. Not the Lobardin I knew, not even the kacin addict. It’s as if he’s just been erased. Is it the magic taking him over, or did Geoffre do something that horrible?

  “Geoffre took me in a room,” he says. “There was a mirror there, a silvered mirror. Smooth and perfect. And he said, Look down into the mirror, Lobardin. When I asked why, he wouldn’t tell me, but it was just a mirror, so I did it.

  “And do you know what I saw? I saw myself doing things too horrible to ever tell anyone. Murdering men in cold blood was the best of it. I even saw myself betraying my House. My House, Kyrra. They never approved of me, but they never disowned me. I still have my name. But in the mirror, my family died, one by one, and all because of my betrayals.

  “Then I said to Geoffre—I said, No, it’s not true, I will not do any of that; what do you think I am? And do you know what he said?”

  Lobardin pauses, as if expecting me to answer. I try to throw him off but he just presses me down harder into the mattress, and my right arm is no use with this dent and this pain in my head, no use at all.

  “No?” he says. “I’ll tell you, then. Geoffre di Prinze said, I think you’re mine, and I think you’ll do anything I tell you. And do you know what he did, Kyrra?” He shakes me by the shoulders when I don’t say anything, and pain rattles my head. “Do you know?”

  “No,” I rasp, trying desperately to think up some way out of this.

  “He had four of his guards hold me down on the floor. And then he took me. He kept me in that room for six weeks. Six weeks. He used magic to do things I had never dreamed of. Things I cannot describe to you and will never be able to tell anybody. And at the end, he was right. I did anything he asked. For all the good it did him. It turns out that the magic I have wasn’t the magic he wanted after all. All that—for nothing. Just to be thrown away like a broken pot
.”

  He looks as if he wants to spit, as if he still has the taste of Geoffre in his mouth.

  “And you gave Arsenault up to that?” I say, pulling upward against his hands until my face is just a breath away from his. “Geoffre held him prisoner for three months.”

  Lobardin makes a noise deep in his throat and lunges forward to smother my mouth with his own. I can’t breathe. I thrash and struggle, but it’s no use. He pushes me down into the bed. I try to bite him, but he’s wise to my tactics now and he tears away before I can.

  And laughs. A dark, helpess chuckle deep in his throat that sounds almost like it’s going to turn into a sob. “Oh, Kyrra,” he says. “I saw you in the mirror, too. In this very room. And this was one of the things I swore I would never do.”

  I look up at him, into those black eyes I could never decipher—and all I can see is that he is drowning. Broken.

  In spite of myself, I can’t hate him. I want to, for the chain of events he set in motion that saw Arsenault into Geoffre’s hands, but what I see in those eyes, what I know of Geoffre—I can’t. All I can remember suddenly is that once he tried to bring me orchids.

  “Then don’t,” I say. “Lobardin, you don’t have to be the person Geoffre made you. You don’t have to fulfill every prophecy the mirror showed you. Fate isn’t set; you have a choice.”

  “A choice?” His laughter is harsh. “Is that truly what you believe? Or are you just parroting Arsenault’s lies?”

  “I don’t know that I ever heard Arsenault say that. He seemed to think we were locked into the game. Let me up, Lobardin,” I say. “Please.”

  “Kyrra. You don’t know how it burned me to see you with Arsenault, how much I wanted you—how it terrified me...”

  “Let me up, then. Just let me up.”

  I lie very still. Because I can See.

  It’s a nauseating double vision, but it shows me true. What a tangle this is that I have gotten into. What broken pawns Geoffre has lined his road with.

  “Lobardin,” I say again. “Let me up. I haven’t decided what to do about Cassis. Has he really changed?”

  Lobardin looks down at me, confused. Then he shakes his head, as if a muzziness has taken hold of him. He looks down at my shoulders, at the crumpled lines of my dress beneath his hands as if he’s seeing them for the first time.