The Twelve Kingdoms

by Jeffe Kennedy

  The fist on my heart released even as Illyria’s dead guard lurched forward. Rayfe and Ash drew swords, laying into them. Concentrating, as we’d discussed, on disarming and delimbing them. They came apart in a hideous way, corrupt blood spraying.

  Glorianna’s rose window shattered and giant black raptors poured in, swooping down to rake talons over the dead guards’ eyes. Disable would be the name of the game. Rayfe tossed me a wicked grin over his shoulder, insufferably pleased with himself to have broken that window twice. To my surprise, I found myself grinning back.

  We’d have words later. I focused in on Illyria, who stared at Andi. “What are you?” she demanded.

  “I am Salena’s daughter,” Andi answered. “With the might of Moranu behind me.”

  I stepped up to the throne, hit a wall like Annfwn’s invisible barrier. “Andi?”

  Illyria regained some confidence. “So much for Moranu’s might. You cannot reach me. Mind your backs.”

  A wail of horrified screaming went up as the dead poured in the doors behind us. With a roar, Harlan swung his broadsword, cleaving through two, three at a time. “Take her out, now!” he shouted at me.

  Blue lightning stabbed at the invisible wall with no effect and I threw myself against it to no avail. Behind it, Illyria wrapped a bejeweled hand around Derodotur’s throat and squeezed. Rather than resisting, he sat passively, mindless. Already dead. I gathered myself to try again and Ami set a slim hand on my arm.

  “I am also Salena’s daughter,” she said, in a voice like temple bells, “and Glorianna’s avatar. You deprive the dead of the surcease of her arms.” She reached up to run her lovely fingers down the surface of the barrier and it became visible. Rotten with death magic and dripping blood. Under her light touch, it pinkened, going from blood red to rose, then shattered into thousands of rose petals, falling into a scented heap.

  Moving my fastest, I leapt over them and ran my blade straight into Illyria’s black heart.

  With no effect.

  She smiled and blew me a little kiss. “You can’t kill me, Salena’s daughter. Uorsin’s daughter. Daughter of failure. For I am beyond death.”

  “I am Salena’s daughter,” I sneered at her and, with my left hand, stabbed a dagger through the arm that held Derodotur. He fell, collapsing without a sound. “I wield Danu’s blade. Amelia? Andromeda?” They stepped up and laid hands over the sword hilt. The Star of Annfwn blazed. “I don’t need to kill you. In Mohraya we burn our dead.”

  Illyria screamed as the blade heated, the skin around it scorching and peeling back black and dissolving into ash. The gaping wound grew, widening, and I followed it with the sword, carving away at her as her blood-curdling screams vaporized with the loss of her lungs, cleaving up to demolish her throat and into her twisted brain. Beside me, Ami gagged, but she kept her hand on mine. A silver-blue light shimmered from Andi, clearing the ash and stench of corruption away. Until nothing remained of Illyria except for her twitching arm, still pinned to the throne, and a tumble of limbs and jewels tangled in her sparkling skirts.

  “Glorianna take and keep her.” Amelia finally released her death grip on my hand and drew the circle of Glorianna in the air. “Though even the goddess of love will be hard-pressed to embrace this one.”

  Andi wrapped her cloak around her hand and pulled the Heir’s circlet from the ashes, wiping it clean. Then held it out. “It’s cool enough.”

  I hesitated. Uorsin had taken it from me. It wasn’t for me to decide.

  With a huff of impatience, Amelia took it from her and fitted it over my brow. “Glorianna wills it,” she said in a fierce tone. “She told me so.”

  The hall was in chaos. With a nod to me, Andi changed form into a big cat, joining Rayfe to methodically slice the mindless masses into harmless pieces. Harlan and Ash fought side by side, a mound of dismembered undead piling high around them.

  It appeared the plan had worked, with some of the winged Tala shifting back to open the gates. Hawks, Vervaldr, Mohrayans, and even people of the township, armed with whatever they could lay hands on, all fought down the undead guard. Even Ambassador Laurenne had taken up a long kitchen knife, using it to grim effect.

  There was no triumph in this victory. We slaughtered our own people to win this battle. It made me sick at heart. Made me wish I could dispatch Illyria again. A hideous demise for each of these.

  “They were dead before we got here,” Ami said to me, her eyes dark with horror. “That’s all the comfort I can take. We’ll have so many to mourn, to send to the bower of Glorianna’s arms. How could Uorsin let this happen?”

  I didn’t know. Perhaps he, too, would be one of her animated dead. In the furious beat of my heart, I found the wish that he would be. The alternative was too terrible to face.

  And yet, it fell to me to do it.

  I left Ami on the dais, as well protected there as anywhere. Uorsin would be in his rooms, most likely. Locked or barricaded in. Signaling to a few of my Hawks, including Marskal and Jepp, I jogged back down the center aisle, dodging severed limbs that crawled and grabbed disconcertingly.

  Taking a moment, I found Lise. “Start a bonfire. Go to the Temple and get the priests from wherever they’re hiding and have them begin funeral rites.”

  She nodded, gulping down the sickness I also felt. I turned and found Harlan beside me. “Stay here,” I ordered him.

  “No. I go with you.”

  “I don’t want you with me.”

  “You’ve made that clear,” he returned, emotionless but for that enduring gleam of injury in his eyes and under it that slow burn of anger. “As I have made my position clear. You will not confront your father alone.”

  I gestured at my team of lean, lethal Hawks, poised to follow me. “I’m not alone.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  I briefly considered ordering him imprisoned in the dungeons, but we needed every pair of able hands. “I want you to promise me something. Right now.”

  “I’ve already promised you everything.”

  “Enough with that. Swear that you’ll leave the Twelve when I order it, that you’ll cease your designs on the throne and go.”

  “You already said this.”

  “Yes, and you did not agree. I didn’t miss that. Swear it.”

  He hesitated fractionally. “I swear I will depart when you command it, Your Highness.”

  “Don’t think that I won’t.”

  Harlan didn’t reply to that, just returned my gaze evenly, a mountain of placid strength, spattered in gore. Absurdly, I wanted to touch him, to break through that wall between us, though I’d been the one to put it there.

  Instead I focused on the next fight and went to see the High King.

  41

  No soldiers stood guard outside the massive doors to Uorsin’s chambers. The torches blazed, but no other signs of life were in evidence. Barred from the inside, not from without. I pulled the lever for the internal bell, doubting it would do much good. If he had barricaded himself in, he’d have no way of knowing it was me and not Illyria who’d come for him.

  Without much hope, I pounded with the side of my fist, shouting for him. Bruising my hand. Harlan folded his around mine, drawing it away.

  “Let me.” He made considerably more sound with his mighty fist, to no more avail. “I’ve never been inside the High King’s rooms. He can’t hear us?”

  I shook my head, ready to gnash my teeth with frustration. “Walls, doors, all too thick.”

  “Windows?”

  “None. It’s a secure room.”

  “Battering ram on the doors.”

  “Might be our only option. It will take a while.” I gestured at the narrow space, explicitly intended to prevent exactly that. No space to maneuver or to gain momentum. “The doors are iron. And there’s three sets.”

  “A thorough defense.”

  I knew it sounded odd, the level of paranoia. It had bothered me, too, watching it grow over the years as Uorsin added levels of
protection. But the current situation proved he’d been right to do it. Didn’t it?

  “How is he getting food and water?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been here, remember? By the looks of people, no one’s eaten for days.” Being pissed wouldn’t help. I rolled my head on my shoulders, stopping abruptly when I remembered he’d take it as a tell. “He has a stockpile, in case this very thing happens.”

  “So what would he do? How would he know a crisis is over and emerge to see to his people?”

  Under his question lay the implicit accusation that he’d abandoned his throne to Illyria.

  “He could be dead or incapacitated,” I retorted, as if Harlan had spoken the words aloud. Defending him against my own insidious doubts. “We have to get in there.”

  Instead of arguing with me, he studied the doors. “Often the entrance is the strongest part, because attackers focus on that. Would another way in be weaker—ceiling or floors?”

  “Possible.” I ran the layout of Ordnung in my head, what lay on the other sides of the chamber walls. Madeline would have known better. I put away the pang of her untimely death, the first of this avalanche. Derodotur would have likely known, having lived here so long. Or Zevondeth. If she still lived. “I can get that information. In the meantime, order must be restored.”

  I dispatched one of the Hawks to round up the housekeeping staff, find the most senior persons still in possession of their mortal senses, and find out the last time anyone had brought food to the King. And to get the kitchen going if it wasn’t. We had several armies and a decimated castle population to feed. I seriously wondered how we’d do it. At least someone else could be dealing with that problem. “If Ami isn’t working with the Temple on the funeral rites, have her look in on the food situation,” I added. “She’s had experience with this sort of thing.

  “Marskal, if Andi’s capable, get her to shift back to human form and have her take over research. I wish we had Dafne, but Andi might know of other librarians. Find someone who knows the building plan for Ordnung. I’ll find out if Zevondeth still lives and what she knows. Jepp, collect your scouts and let’s find out if there’s movement out there. Let the people stuck in the township know that they can leave for their homes, but to be wary of running afoul of the encamped armies or their patrols. Send any Vervaldr here to report to Captain Harlan for reassignment. Maybe Rayfe and Ash will help with organizing our defenses, in case Erich sees this as an opportunity to attack. See if anyone knows where Lord Percy is. Odds on, he’s been dead a while, but I need to know. I want six guards on these doors at all times—arrange the rotation however you think best. If there’s any sign at all from within, send for me immediately.”

  What else?

  “Oh, and get someone to roust the maids and start cleanup of the gore—this place reeks and that can’t be healthy. The last thing we need is for people to take ill on top of everything else. Speaking of which, someone will need to dig more latrines to accommodate all these people.”

  Fortunately my Hawks were accustomed to handling many tasks of living and dying and so took no affront at being go-between to the serving staff. With a last pound on the doors, to continued lack of response, I turned to find Harlan with an odd smile on his lips. “What?”

  “You’re countermanding the King’s commands.”

  “I’m handling things in his absence the best way I know how. We can’t feed and house all those people. Better that they get to their homes. And we need the Vervaldr here. If only for latrine duty.”

  “Is there any aspect of running this castle or kingdom you don’t personally handle?”

  “Yes—the dozen or so tasks I just delegated.” At a brisk pace, I headed for Zevondeth’s rooms, praying to Danu that she still lived. In the real way.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I can be so utterly in love with you and find you so admirable, when you’ve tried and condemned me for something I never did, that you refuse to even discuss.”

  “It demonstrates your continued poor judgment. And don’t start with that—you won’t get under my defenses again.”

  “Yet, you did not attempt to assign me a task, send me away.”

  “Even I know when to stop banging my head against a wall.”

  “Do you?” His tone of voice warned me, but I didn’t spin out of his reach quite in time. Lulled, as I had been lately, into letting him get too close. Always a mistake, as I would inevitably lose once within grappling distance. He had me backed up against the stones of the hallway, wrists pinned so I couldn’t draw, heat burning in his pale gaze. “We’ll have this out, you and I.”

  “This is not the time.”

  “When better? You’ll be informed if Uorsin pokes his nose out. Lady Zevondeth is going nowhere in the next few moments. You’ve neatly avoided being alone with me until now, and if I know you, which I believe I do, you’ll no doubt make sure of it in the future. Then, before I’ve had a chance to talk to you, you’ll have found an excuse to order me away.”

  “I should have done it already.”

  “Then why haven’t you?”

  My heart ached from it all—the deaths, the starving faces, all the horrors, the tangled nest of uncertainty about my father, the bitter rage against Harlan, the agonizing sense of betrayal—I felt bruised and battered and supremely unable to stand up to any of it.

  “I want you to go.” I meant it to sound hard, but it came out with an edge of pleading. He heard it, too, because his gaze softened.

  “Ursula.” Harlan breathed my name like a prayer. “Essla. My hawk. I’m sorry. You don’t want my apology, but you have it. It never once occurred to me that my family would mean anything to you. I left that so long ago that I forget most of the time that was ever part of my life. None of it means anything to me—until the moment I realized you thought I’d betrayed you. I never would. I couldn’t. I love you far too much. Not for a throne. For you.”

  You look for everyone to betray you, to leave you, to fail to love you.

  I stared at him as if he’d taken a blade to my gut and opened me up. And pressed my lips together against the hurt. I’d thought I’d been angry at him, but no. No, it was worse. I was my father’s daughter. My father, barricaded in his chambers, while his people suffered. Our father has you thinking that everything is about the High Throne, that this power is all that matters.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I whispered, as if we could be overheard.

  “Just say you’ll give me time to prove myself to you.”

  I laughed a little, a bit of a sob behind it. “You’ve proven yourself over and over. I’m the one who’s failed.” Over and over.

  “No.” He let go of my wrists but stopped shy of touching my face, his hands fluttering a whisper away. “I’m filthy or I’d hold you. You’ve never failed because you’ve never stopped trying. You never will. All those people who look to you to save them know it.”

  “I don’t know either what’s wrong with you that you love me. How you can.”

  “I know. But I do. You can trust in that. Always.”

  “I need you to promise me one more thing.”

  Wary, he waited.

  “I understand that it’s part of taking care of me for you, but I want you to swear that you won’t attempt to kill the King.”

  His jaw tightened. “You ask a great deal.”

  “I’m asking you to trust me to handle this the best way I know how.”

  “I do so swear,” he ground out. “Only by way of demonstrating that you are more important to me than anything else.”

  I didn’t care about the filth that coated us both, I flung myself against the bulwark of his body, kissing him and clinging, impossibly starved for him, even after such a brief time.

  “How did I get through before you?” I wondered aloud, when I pulled away for breath.

  “I’ve long questioned that,” he replied with a wry smile.

  “I’m sorry, too. That I’m so hardheaded. T
hat I didn’t talk to you.”

  “It’s part of who you are—for good and ill. It gives you this spine of steel”—he ran his hands up my back—“but can encase and trap you, as in your nightmare. Your stubbornness should be a strength, not a crippling handicap.”

  “Yes.” Something about that niggled at me. I set it aside to cook, but not so far that I’d forget to think about it. “I have to talk to Zevondeth, if she still lives.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Della refused to even open the doors this time. Fortunately they were far easier to breech than Uorsin’s, especially with my personal battering ram. Harlan broke through with the second heave of his powerful shoulders, neatly clearing away the furniture that had been stacked against it. Harlan checked the bedchamber and emerged almost immediately, shaking his head that Zevondeth was not inside.

  Della’s shrill screams hurt my ears, and I was tempted to run her through with my blade just to shut her up. We could hardly afford to lose more lives, however. The experience also made me wonder how many people were similarly barricaded in the untold rooms, towers, and crannies of Ordnung, too frightened to emerge. The castle had been bursting at the seams when we left, and surely Illyria hadn’t had time to work her death magic on them all. Who knew how long that magic took, but she’d made so many of her dead guard.

  Where and how had she been doing it, anyway? Something else to see to. It made me weary just contemplating it.

  “Here now!” I tried for a verbal slap, to break through Della’s hysteria. “You know who I am.”

  “Ye-ee-ess,” she sobbed. “But you could be one of them!” She started weeping in great gulps.

  “Look at me.” I took her by the arms, dirtying her pretty dress, but oh, well. “Do I look undead? I’m Her Highness Ursula and you are bound to obey me. Now, I command you to calm down and listen.”