A Crown for Assassins

by Morgan Rice

  “And soon you will be my king beside me,” Sophia said. She looked as though she wanted to kiss him, and Sebastian definitely wanted to kiss her, but that would have to wait.

  The high priestess made a small sound of annoyance, as if to remind them that there was a wedding waiting.

  “We are gathered today to witness the wedding of Queen Sophia of the House of Danse to Prince Sebastian of the House of Flamberg. They stand unmasked in the sight of the goddess, and before one another.”

  It conveniently left out the part where neither of them had followed the traditional ceremony in the first place. Sebastian let it go. The fact that he was marrying the woman he loved was the only thing that mattered.

  “Now,” the high priestess said. “Queen Sophia tells me that she wishes to say her own words at this point. Your Majesty?”

  Sophia reached out to touch Sebastian’s face, and in that moment the crowd was quiet enough that the words carried over it on the breeze.

  “When I first met you,” she said, “I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know where I fit into the world, or even if I could. I knew that I loved you, though. That part was a constant. That part hasn’t changed. I love you, Sebastian, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  It was Sebastian’s turn then, but he hadn’t prepared what he would say. He had thought that he would know when the time came, and, it turned out, he did.

  “We’ve been through so much,” Sebastian said. “I have had moments when I thought that I had lost you, and moments when I knew that I did not deserve you. I tried to follow you beyond the kingdom, and in the end, you are the one who found me here. I love you, Sophia.” He paused for a moment and smiled. “I never thought that I would be the one marrying into royalty.”

  The high priestess took their hands, placing them in one another. Sebastian’s heart pulsed with anticipation. Ordinarily, this would have been the moment when she pronounced them married, but that wasn’t the way Sophia wanted things.

  Instead, the horns sounded again.

  ***

  Kate looked out toward the entrance to the Church of the Masked Goddess, unable to contain her excitement much longer. Her sister getting both crowned and married would already have made this one of the best days of her life at any other time, but now, it felt as though she’d waited long enough. She watched with eager anticipation as Will stepped out.

  Neither of them looked as regal as Sophia and Sebastian did, but that was fine by Kate. They were soldiers, not rulers. It was enough that Will was the same gorgeous boy she’d first seen when he’d come to visit his parents’ forge.

  He marched down toward the platform, and halfway along his route, Lord Cranston and his men drew their swords, forming an arch of steel for Will to walk beneath. It made Kate glad to see it, and glad that they were all still alive after all the battles they’d fought.

  Will came up onto the platform and Kate grabbed his hand for herself, not waiting for some withered old priestess to decide that it was time.

  “When I first met you,” Will said, “I thought you were headstrong, stubborn, and probably likely to get both of us killed. I wondered what kind of wild girl had come into my parents’ forge. Now I know that you are all of those things, Kate, and it is just a part of what makes you so amazing. I want to be your husband until the stars grow so dull I can’t see you, or until I grow so dull I start to slow you down.”

  “You don’t slow me down,” Kate replied. “My heart’s beating faster just looking at you, for one thing. I wish I could promise to settle down with you and to make things peaceful, but we both know that’s not the way that the world works. War can come even in the happiest times, and it’s not in my nature to stand by for it. Still, until blade or bow or just old age claims us, I want you to be mine.”

  It wasn’t the traditional kind of promise, but it was what was in Kate’s heart, and she suspected that was the part that counted. The high priestess didn’t look particularly impressed, but from where Kate was standing, that was just an added bonus.

  “Now that we have heard your own promises to one another, I ask you, Sophia of House Danse, do you take Sebastian of House Flamberg to be your husband?”

  “I do,” Sophia said beside Kate.

  “And do you, Kate of House Danse, take Will… son of Thomas the smith, to be your husband?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?” Kate pointed out, trying not to laugh at the old woman’s inability to comprehend that someone born to a smith might not have a house name. “All right, all right, I do.”

  “Do you, Sebastian of House Flamberg take Sophia of House Danse to be your wife?”

  “I do,” Sebastian said.

  “And do you Will take Kate of House Danse to be your wife?”

  “I do,” he said, sounding happier than Kate suspected anyone had a right to be at the prospect of being joined to her for life.

  “Then it is my pleasure to declare that you are one flesh, joined in the eyes of the goddess,” the priestess intoned.

  But Kate didn’t hear her. By that point, she was far too busy kissing Will.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Master of Crows watched his fleet with satisfaction as it sailed in to land on the northern coast of what had once been the Dowager’s kingdom. The invasion fleet was like a bloodstain on the water, the crows flying above in great flocks that seemed more like storm clouds.

  Ahead lay a small fishing port, hardly a fitting start for his campaign, but after the time they’d spent at sea, it would be a welcome taste of things to come. The ships hung back, waiting for his signal, and the Master of Crows paused for a moment to appreciate the beauty of it all, the peace of the sunlit shore.

  He waved a hand idly, and whispered, knowing that a hundred corvids would croak the words to his captains. “Let it begin.”

  The ships started to move forward like the individual components of some beautiful machine of death, each one slotting into its allotted place as it moved toward the shore. The Master of Crows guessed that the captains would be vying to see who could perform their duties the most precisely, trying to please him with the obedience of their crews. They never seemed to learn that he cared about little except the death to follow.

  “There will be death,” he murmured as one of his pets landed on his shoulder. “There will be enough death to drown the world.”

  The crow cawed its agreement, as well it should. His creatures had been well fed in the last weeks, the deaths from the battle for Ashton still filling his coffers of power, even as fresh deaths flowed in from around the New Army’s empire every day.

  “There will be more today,” he said with a grim smile as both soldiers and would-be soldiers lined up to defend their home on the shore.

  Cannon sounded, the first shots echoing across the water, the crashes of their impact reverberating. Soon the air would be thick with smoke, so that he would be the only one able to see what was happening, thanks to his birds. Soon, his men would have to trust his orders absolutely.

  “Tell the third company to swing wider,” he said to one of his aides. “It will prevent anyone from escaping up the coast.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the young man replied.

  “Have a landing boat prepared for me as well.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And remind the men of my orders: those who resist are to be killed without mercy.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the aide said again.

  As if the Master of Crows’ captains needed to be reminded. They knew his rules by now, his wishes. He sat on the deck of his flagship, watching cannonballs strike flesh, and men falling beneath the barrage of musket fire. Finally, he decided that the moment was ripe, and he made his way to the landing boat that was being lowered, checking his weapons as he went.

  “Row,” he commanded the men there, and they strained against the oars, striving to get him to the shore along with his troops.

  He held up a hand as his crows warned him, and the
men stopped rowing in time for a ball shot from an aging cannon to strike the water in front of them.

  “Continue.”

  The landing boat slid through the waves, and, in spite of the overwhelming force of the New Army’s numbers, some of the waiting men leapt to attack it. The Master of Crows hopped onto the quay to meet them, his blades rising.

  He thrust through the chest of one, then stepped aside as another swung at him. He parried a blow and cut another man down with the casual efficiency of long practice. It was so foolish of men like this to think that they could hope to defeat him, even hurt him. Only two people had managed that in a long while, and both Kate Danse and her detestable brother would die for that in time.

  For now, this was not so much a fight as a slaughter, and the Master of Crows reveled in it. He hacked and he thrust, bringing down foes with every movement. When he saw a young woman trying to run, he paused to draw a pistol and shoot her in the back, then continued about his more pressing work.

  “Please,” a man begged, throwing down his sword in surrender. The Master of Crows gutted him, then moved onto the next.

  The slaughter was as inevitable as it was absolute. A scattering of badly armed militia couldn’t begin to hope to defend against this many foes. It was done so quickly that it was hard to imagine what they had been trying to achieve by standing at all. Presumably something to do with honor, or some other nonsense.

  “Ah,” the Master of Crows said to himself as he looked through the eyes of one of his creatures and saw a knot of people fleeing into the nearby hills, heading south. He came back to himself and looked over to the nearest of his captains. “A group of villagers is fleeing along a trail not far from here. Take men and slaughter them all, please.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the man said. If the work of killing the innocent bothered him, he did not show it. But then, if he had been a man to balk at such things, the Master of Crows would have killed him for it long ago.

  The Master of Crows stood in the wake of the battle, listening to the kind of quiet that only came with death. He listened to the crows as they landed to begin their work, and felt the power start to flow in as they consumed their share. It was a pitiful trickle compared to some of the battles that had gone before, but there would be more to follow.

  He sent his awareness out into his creatures, letting them speak with his voice.

  “This town is mine,” he said. “Submit or you will die. Deliver up all those who have magic, or you will die. Do as you are commanded, or you will die. You are nothing now, slaves and less than slaves. Obey, and you will stave off being food for the crows for a while. Disobey, and you will die.”

  He sent his creatures up into the air, surveying the land that he had taken in this first advance. He could see the horizon stretched out far from him, with all the promise of more land to conquer, more deaths to feed his pets.

  The Master of Crows did not normally receive visions. At best, his crows gave him enough to guess at what would happen. He was not the witch of the fountain, to pluck at the strands of the future, and even she had not been able to foresee her death. Now, though, the vision came rushing in to him, borne on the wings of his pets.

  He saw a child, cradled in its mother’s arms, and he recognized the kingdom’s newly crowned queen instantly. He saw danger behind the child, and more than danger. The death he had staved off so long with the lives of others stalked in this babe’s shadow. It reached out for him, with the innocence of a child, and the Master of Crows recoiled from it, fleeing back to himself.

  He stood there in the middle of the town he had taken, shaking his head.

  “Is everything all right, my lord?” his aide asked.

  “Yes,” the Master of Crows said, because if he admitted to weakness he would only have to kill the man. If any hint of the fear that rose within him got out, then all who saw would die. Yes, that was a thought…

  “I have changed my mind,” he said. “We will save conquest for the next town. Raze this one. Kill every inhabitant, man, woman or… babe in arms. Leave no two stones together.”

  The aide did not question that any more than his captain had questioned hunting down those fleeing.

  “It will be as you command, my lord,” he promised.

  The Master of Crows had no doubt that it would be. He commanded, and people died in response. If there was meant to be a child who was a threat to him… well, that child could die as well—along with its mother.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Emeline stood at the heart of Stonehome and tried to contain some of her frustration as she looked around the stone circle at all the inhabitants. Cora and Aidan stood beside her, which was some support, but when everyone else there was so set against them, it didn’t seem like enough.

  “Sophia sent us to persuade you to come back to Ashton,” Emeline said, focusing on the spot where Asha and Vincente sat. How many times had she had this argument there now? It had taken all this time just to get to the point where they would discuss this together at the circle. “There was no need for you to return to Stonehome after the battle. She is building a kingdom where our kind are free, and have nothing to fear.”

  “There is always something to fear while those who hate us exist,” Asha retorted. “She could have ordered the Masked Goddess’s churches shut down. She could have seen their butchers hanged for their crimes.”

  “And that would have restarted the civil war,” Cora said from beside Emeline.

  “Better to have a war than to live beside those who hate us,” Asha said. “Who have done such things to us as can never be forgiven.”

  Vincente put it in more measured terms, but wasn’t much more helpful. “This is a place where we have built a community, Emeline. This is a place where we can be sure we are safe. I have no doubt that Sophia has good intentions, but that is not the same thing as being able to change things.”

  Emeline had to fight back the urge to shout at them for their stupidity. Cora must have seen that, because she put a hand on Emeline’s arm.

  “It will be fine,” she whispered. “They’ll see sense eventually.”

  “What you call ‘sense,’” Asha snapped from the other side of the stone circle, “I call a betrayal of our people. We are safe here, not out in the world.”

  Emeline shot her an angry glance. Asha couldn’t have heard Cora’s whisper from there, which meant that she’d read Cora’s mind. That was more than rude; it was dangerous, especially when Asha had been the one to teach Emeline how to pull memories out of someone.

  “People are free to come and go if they wish,” Vincente said. “If Sophia really does deliver a kingdom where our kind are free, people will come of their own accord, without the need for emissaries.”

  “And what will it look like until then?” Emeline replied. “What will it look like when all those with gifts are hidden away, as if they are ashamed of them? Will it look like we are no threat, or will it give people space to claim that we are plotting in secret? For the old rumors to reappear?”

  The hardest part about the crowd around them was that it was impossible for Emeline to gauge what effect her words were having. With another crowd she could have reached out for the feel of their thoughts, or at least listened to them talking to one another. Here, the conversations were silent things of thoughts flickering back and forth, well directed enough that she wasn’t a part of it.

  “Perhaps you have a point,” Vincente said.

  “They do not,” Asha replied. “They are the ones who have made us less safe, by making it so that people know where we are.”

  “We haven’t told anyone,” Cora said.

  Asha snorted. “As if they couldn’t have taken it from your head. If you weren’t sent by the queen, I’d take every thought you have for that.”

  “No,” Aidan said, putting a protective hand on Cora’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t.”

  Vincente stood, his full height more than impressive enough to calm things. “That’s enough b
ickering. Asha, the new defenses will be more than enough to protect us, even if people find us. As for the rest of it… I suggest a seeing.”

  “A seeing?” Emeline asked.

  Vincente made a gesture that encompassed the crowd around them. “We join our minds together, and we see what will result from each action. It is not perfect, but it will help us to decide what we must do.”

  The idea of joining her mind to so many others was a worrying one, but if it would give her a chance to persuade them, Emeline wasn’t going to hold back.

  “All right,” she said. “How do we do it?”

  Simply connect your mind to the others’, Vincente sent. They are waiting.

  Emeline reached out with her gift, and now she could feel the minds of those around the circle waiting for her. They were open now in a way they had not been before. She took a breath and plunged in amongst them.

  She was herself, and not herself, both an individual mote of thoughts and the larger cloud of them that drifted together. With so many of them in one place, there was power here that was more than one person could ever have possessed. That power drifted into focus, and Emeline felt Vincente’s hand guiding it with what she suspected was skill borne of long practice.

  Concentrate on the future, he sent. On seeing what will happen if—

  He didn’t get further than that, because in that moment, a vision overtook them with the force of a forest fire.

  There was fire in the vision. It flickered over the rooftops of Ashton, consuming, destroying. Soldiers in ochre uniforms marched through the streets, killing as they went. Emeline heard women screaming from inside houses, saw men cut down as they fled in the streets. The vision seemed to float through the streets, barely giving them all enough time to take in the carnage as they headed for the palace.

  Around them, the destruction of Ashton made Emeline ache to watch it. The slaughter was horrific, but strangely, the loss of the places that she’d grown up around was almost as bad. Seeing barges burn on the river made her think of the one she’d tried to escape the city on. Seeing the marketplace filled with corpses instead of stalls made her heart break.