by Aaron Pogue
“Of course,” Corin lied. He went ahead, up into the coach, and della Porta himself climbed up to the driver’s perch. He leaned back and slammed the door shut, blocking Corin’s view, then cracked his whip and rumbled off. He crossed the courtyard and exited through the main gate, then went down twisting city streets unfamiliar to Corin.
Ten minutes he drove, long enough that Corin began to worry he was riding to some other careful ambush. But why show such disapproval if this was a trap? Why threaten him in such a way? They’d all regret it if Sera were discovered? Was her position not enough to protect her, at least?
There were questions here. And he had barely scratched the surface when the carriage settled to a stop, and the door swung open. Signor della Porta raised a finger to his lips, requesting silence still, then gestured farther down the narrow lane. It was a quiet part of town, where the lords and ladies kept their homes far from the noisy bustle of the markets. Tall trees spread their branches above the road, making a lovely colonnade, and walls lined either side of it, carved stone that pleased the eye and also offered privacy to the privileged homes.
And there, where the old retainer had indicated, Corin saw a swooping archway through the wall, an entrance to some private garden. As he approached, he found an iron gate, its lock open. It struck him, then. She was waiting for him there. The royal princess was waiting for her secret lover in this secluded, lovely garden.
He almost hesitated. But, after all, there was work to do. If some sacrifices were required…well, he’d do what he had to do to destroy Ethan Blake. He ran a hand through his hair, and perhaps he stood a little taller—though with the glamour it would make no difference. Then he strode ahead and through the gate, with all the swagger of a returning hero.
But then he saw her, and she stopped him in his tracks. She was nothing like the woman he’d expected. At a glance, she looked young and soft and sweet. Seventeen at most, but there was a quiet sadness in her clear blue eyes that spoke of wisdom. Her dress was white and of a simple, modest cut, and the only jewelry she wore was a thin gold chain around her neck and a narrow silver ring on her right hand. Her brown hair hung loose, and two tendrils curled around her soft face, brushing at her slender neck. He’d expected sharp lines and hard edges. He’d expected a viper’s grace, a vixen’s cunning. He had not expected softness, but in the moonlight she looked gentle as a lamb.
And then she noticed he was there. Her eyes grew wide and the most precious smile lit her face. She dashed toward him, arms outstretched, but two paces off she caught herself. Pain tugged at the corners of her eyes, but she forced her arms down to her side and gulped a heavy breath that did nothing for her modesty. She licked her lips and almost met his eyes.
“Good knight, what brings you to Aerome?”
Corin shook his head. “Grim news. Grim news indeed.”
“Oh?” Surprise flashed to disappointment, and she took a step away. “Tell me, then.”
“You have an enemy at court.”
She hung her head. “I have a thousand of them. What’s one more?”
“This one is a cousin,” Corin said. “Giuliano. And he is acting against you even now.”
“How? Giuliano? I barely know the name. What could he do to me?”
“He tried to kill me, Sera. He sent three agents to dispatch me while I was in the Wildlands.”
“But you’ve survived.” She flashed a little smile. “You always do survive.”
He shook his head. “Can you believe he’ll stop with one attempt? Would anyone in your family stop now?”
She heaved a sigh. “Of course not. Are you afraid? Do you really think he can hurt you?”
“I am more afraid he will hurt you. If he changes his designs—”
“Why? Why would he come after me? What could anyone gain by hurting me?”
Corin tried to hide his frown. It was a senseless question. She was in line to Ipolito’s throne. She should have been a major power in the city. Everyone but the king himself had motive to manipulate her or remove her from contention.
But she seemed earnest. She took half a step toward him, and he felt an urge to wrap his arms around her and comfort her. It was what she wanted from him—from the man she thought he was—and something deep in Corin’s heart wanted to comfort her, to wipe that pain from her expression.
But he was not her lover. He had to think the words, to remind himself. She was a Vestossi snake, however soft her skin, and he meant to use her as a tool against her cousin. Comforting her would not aid him there. He needed her to feel this anguish, this dread, so he could direct it. He turned his face away and forced some steel into his voice.
“You cannot wait to find the answers to those questions,” he said. “Do you understand? If you wait until Giuliano reveals his true intentions, it will be too late for you.”
“But what of our plans?”
He shook his head. “Everything has changed. He came after me, Sera. Do you understand that? He came after me to get at you, and when he learns his agents failed, it will be too late.”
“Then we will run,” she said. She came forward another step, close enough that he could smell the perfume in her hair, and she caught his hand in both of hers. “We’ll run away somewhere where we can’t be found. Take me to the Spinola, if that’s the only place that’s safe. I trust in you.”
Corin started. “You would leave Ithale? You’d lose everything. There’s nothing in the Wildlands—”
“There’s you. That’s all I need.”
Who was this woman? Leave the lap of luxury? Leave her power? Leave her name? This was no Vestossi! But the woman here before him was a perfect match for the noble hero he had met in the Wildlands. Bright-eyed and innocent, courageous and naïve.
She was not the cold steel blade he’d hoped to use against Ethan Blake, but she was the only weapon that he had. He dropped her hands and caught her shoulders. Grim and midnight, he held her eyes for a moment and said, “Sera…if you want to live…if you want me to live, we have to deal with this threat.”
“Not if we run. Not if we hide. I trust in you. No one will ever find us.”
“He tried to kill me, Sera.”
“But he failed.”
“He tried to kill me, and he will do the same to you. We’ll run. We’ll live the life you’re dreaming of. But first, we must eliminate the threat.”
“What do you mean?”
“We must crush Giuliano. We must strip him of his power. I can find a way, if you will help.”
“Auric—”
“You’ve said you trust in me.”
“I do.”
“Then help me in this. Give me a day or two. Give me time to make a plan, and then do only what I ask of you.”
“To what end, Auric?”
“To Giuliano’s end. We can destroy him. I’m sure of it. And once he’s crushed, we can live, happy ever after.”
She withdrew a pace, her gentle gaze still fixed on Corin’s face. She stood there for a moment, lovely in the moonlight, and then she cocked her head to the side and whispered softly, “Who are you? Why are you here? And what’s become of the true Auric?”
“Sera, I—”
She raised her eyebrows, glaring, and for the first time since he’d seen her, she looked like a Vestossi. “No more lies, stranger. I must admit, you do look just like him. You sound like him. You…” A little shiver shook her. “You smell like him. But you are not the man you claim to be.”
His mind raced. “Much has changed. I’ve seen the darker side of man—”
She cut him off with a burst of laughter. “No. You fail again. But it is a compelling disguise. Are you a wizard?”
A wizard! Of course. Corin hung his head and closed his eyes. “Not I,” he said. “But Ridgemon is.”
“Auric’s brother?”
Corin nodded. He let the glamour melt away, then raised his gaze back to the princess. “Forgive me this deception, Princess Sera. Forgive Auric too. He feared th
at you would not trust the message of some stranger, so he asked Ridgemon to send me in this guise.”
She shook her head. “That is not my Auric either. Tell me the whole truth, or I will end this interview immediately.”
End the interview. That was her gravest threat, when she had murderers and justicars at her beck and call? Corin couldn’t fathom the woman standing here before him. He couldn’t find an angle, an edge to pull on. The Nimble Fingers had a rule: “You cannot cheat an honest man.” He’d always taken it to mean there were no honest men, for he’d never yet found an opportunity he couldn’t twist to his advantage.
But this princess…He’d mistaken kind and honest for naïve and innocent, but she was no fool. She seemed to see right through his lies, and no matter how he’d tried, she showed no interest in revenge or even justice. But then, he’d concealed the worst of it from her. If anything would compel her, it was the truth. And if that didn’t work, at least he’d know he’d honored a good man’s last request.
So he cleared his throat and stared at his own feet. “Forgive me, Princess Sera. I am a vagabond and a rogue. The truth does not come easily to me, and I do not often treat with nobility.”
“At last I hear a genuine voice from you.”
“But not a happy one. The message that I brought to you was true, even if my form was not. You do have an enemy in your cousin Giuliano. He did conspire against your lover, Auric.”
“How did he know? We’ve kept a careful secret.”
Corin shook his head. “There are no secrets in Ithale. Not from the Vestossis. You should know this as well as anyone.”
She sighed but gave no other answer.
Corin pressed on. “I chanced to meet with Auric just before the killers found him. We spoke but—”
“How?” she interrupted.
“How?”
“How did you chance to meet him? He is hunting in the Wildlands, or was the last I heard.”
“Aye,” Corin said. “It was there. I shipwrecked off the coast and ran afoul of the same men who’d been sent against Auric. I escaped their clutches, dashed into the woods, and found Auric’s hunting party gathered around a fire. They took me in.”
“That sounds like him.”
“And when I told them that there was a murderer on the shore, Auric insisted on delivering him justice.”
A sad smile touched her lips. “That sounds like him as well.”
Corin shook his head. “But they had placed a careful trap for him. They ambushed him on the beach and killed him. I’m sorry, Princess.”
For a long while she said nothing. She didn’t move. She barely breathed. And then she touched her cheek with a delicate hand, turned away a moment, and asked him softly, “How?”
“The details aren’t pleasant.”
“I don’t care. Tell me how.”
“They trapped him in the lower hold of a pirate ship and exploded a charge of dwarven powder just outside. They sank the ship to the seabed with him still trapped inside. Even if the blast was not enough to kill him—”
“You didn’t see it, then?”
He stared a moment. “Aye. I saw the blast. It lit up the night like noon.”
She shook her head. “No. I mean you didn’t seem him dead.”
“Oh, Princess. Don’t hold out hope for him. No man could have survived that.”
She raised her chin. “My Auric is no ordinary man.”
“Princess, I was there at the last. I tried in vain to rescue him, and all he said, all he asked of me was that I get away—that I find some way to reach you in Aerome and warn you of the danger against you.”
She smiled, though tears still touched her eyes. “That does sound so much like him.”
“I wanted so much to save him. You must believe me.”
She came forward and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. She caught his gaze and held it for a moment, every inch the noble princess. “I do. How could you not? Anyone who spent an hour with Auric would have thrown his life away to save him.”
Corin winced as though she’d stricken him, but she squeezed harder at his shoulder. She raised a finger to his chin and lifted his face to meet her gaze again. “I absolve you of whatever guilt you carry here—”
“That’s not within your reach,” he said.
“Vagabond, do not argue with your princess.”
He offered her a conciliatory smile but argued anyway. “You are not my princess.”
“Your Aepoli accent and the laws of Ithale would say otherwise. And as I am your princess, I will absolve you of this guilt because I know that Auric would if he were here. I know it as I know my own true heart, and if you knew him at all, you’d know it too.”
“Oh, gods’ blood, he likely would.”
“He would. And I assure you, no matter what you’ve seen, that he’s alive. He has survived far worse things than this trap that you’ve described.”
“Princess—”
“Please. Call me Sera, if he sent you to speak with me. If he trusted you that much, then I do too.”
“Then you must trust his message as well. Giuliano is a grave threat.”
“He is not the first. Auric and I had our plans.”
“But Auric’s gone. Or…even if he did survive, he isn’t here to protect you.”
“And you’re prepared to take his place?”
“Against Giuliano, aye. If you will help me, I can crushhim.”
She shook her head, a sadness in her eyes. “You cannot crush them all, vagabond. They are Ithale.”
“But if I can crush just this one.”
She smiled, sad. “I used to think the way you do. I used to try to find some way through the twisting maze of my family’s politics. I never wished to be like them, but I always assumed I had to use my family’s power to survive it.”
“Now’s the time.”
“No. That’s what Auric showed me. Evil can’t be fought with evil, and filth cannot be cleaned with filth. He convinced me to pursue a better life and went himself to do the same, thinking that between us, we could change the world.”
“And now the filth has taken him from you,” Corin said, as gently as he could. “Princess, it was a precious thought, but good men do not thrive in this Hurope.”
“Then I will run away. That was our plan. We would do everything we could to change the world through hope and noble deeds, but we always knew it might not work. And if worse came to worst, we would run away. We would leave the vipers to their nests and find some quiet place of our own.”
“But…you can’t go on your own. I’ve told you, he’s—”
“He’ll find me. I have faith in him. He’ll find me, and we’ll be happy again.”
“That’s no kind of plan. Don’t you understand what this man has done to you? To Auric? You’re about to throw away a life of luxury because some wretched snake—some stinking dog—believed that he could treat human beings like chattel. I won’t accept it, Princess. He needs to pay.”
She considered him a moment. “Run away.”
“That is no answer!”
“It is the only answer. I can see it in your eyes. You hate this society at least as much as I. But I can tell you from long experience, it will not change. You can spend your life hating them, fighting them, but you cannot defeat them. There is a wide world outside the Godlands. Go explore it. Find some hidden corner all your own, and make it what you want it to be.”
Corin’s hands clenched into fists. A rage burned behind his breastbone—not at the princess, but at the things she spoke of. His voice rose louder than he meant it to. “That is no answer.”
“I’d hoped for another. I thought perhaps I’d found the one man in this world so charmed that he could change things, but you tell me I was wrong. If Auric couldn’t do it, no one can. The only hope is running.”
“No. Here it is I who speak from long experience, and I can tell you this plan is just as broken as the other. I’ve tried it, Princess. I’ve run.”<
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“Perhaps not far enough?”
“There’s nowhere farther than I’ve been. All my life I ran away, and still they found me. Everywhere I’ve gone, in space and time, they’ve found me. There is no escape from tyrants. They must be challenged, and they must be cast down.”
She shrank away from his intensity. Her lip trembled, and once again she looked but a girl. Alone. “I…I don’t know how. I can’t. I made a promise.”
“And a noble one, but we must face the truth.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t betray that promise. Even if he’s dead. No, especially if he’s dead. I can’t.”
Corin considered her a moment, then dropped his gaze. “I understand. It was unfair to ask of you. Everything I’ve done has been unfair to you. I should have honored Auric’s wishes and nothing more.”
“You had a good intention.”
“But I hurt you with it. Princess, beware your cousin Giuliano. He means you harm. Watch out for every sign of danger.”
“I always do.”
“Good. That’s all you need for now.”
“But what do you intend?”
“I will do what you cannot. I still believe there must be some way to break his power. I will find it. I will cast him down.”
“And…what do you ask of me.”
He met her eyes and offered her a smile. “I ask only that you keep your promise. Fight for nobility, because someone has to.”
She stood a moment, weighing Corin with her eyes; then she shook her head and moved toward the gateway. As she approached, the windowless, unmarked black carriage rattled up and stood waiting for her. She stopped beneath the arch, though, and turned back to Corin.
“What will you do?”
Corin spread his hands. “I will take your cousin’s evil to his own door. I’ll hang him by the knot of his misdeeds.”
“Gods favor,” she breathed, horrified.
“No gods at all. Just me.”
She shuddered, head to toe, then turned and climbed quickly up into the carriage. The driver cracked his whip the moment she was closed inside, and the carriage thundered off at a terrible speed. Corin started after it, surprised, and he’d gone perhaps ten paces down the lane before he found an answer lying in the gutter.