A Crown for Assassins

by Morgan Rice

  “A man is always free to choose his path in Ishjemme,” another of the farmers shot back.

  “Yes, but that path has consequences,” Endi said. “I’ll give you one last chance. As your duke, I command you to yield your claims.”

  “It’s our land!” the first man shouted.

  Endi sighed. “Just remember that I gave you the choice. Refusing to heed your duke’s command is treason. Men, execute the traitors.”

  His men moved forward, the same axes and hammers in their hands that they’d used to smash the statues. They smashed flesh just as easily. Statues might not shriek, or beg, or make wet, gurgling sounds, but the crack of bone was near enough to the crack of stone. Endi looked around at his brother, not surprised to see Oli ashen-faced. His brother wasn’t as strong as he was.

  “I know it’s hard, Oli,” he said, as more cries came in the background, “but we must do what is necessary if we are to make Ishjemme strong. If I do not do the cruel things that must be done, then others will come in and do worse.”

  “As… as you say, brother.”

  Endi took his brother by the shoulders. “At least this means that the way will be clear for the building projects now. I’m right in thinking that a traitor’s lands are forfeit, aren’t I?”

  “I… I think that there are precedents,” Oli said. Endi could hear the quaver in his voice.

  “Find them for me,” Endi said.

  “What about these people’s families?” Oli said. “Some will have children, or old folk.”

  “Do whatever you think is best to care for them,” Endi said. “Just so long as you get them out of the way before the work must be done.”

  “I will,” Oli said. He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I… I’ll send out messages to the work crews at once.”

  “See that you do,” Endi said.

  He watched his brother hurrying off, knowing that Oli didn’t really understand the need for all of this. That was the luxury that came with knowing he would never have power. Rika had the same luxury. The two had probably been the only ones of his siblings who had never been warriors, never had to deal with the harsh realities of the world. Part of the reason that Endi had done all this in front of Oli was to make sure his brother learned what was sometimes needed.

  It was for his own good. It was for everyone’s good. They would see it in time, and when they did, they would thank him for it. Even soft-hearted Rika would curtsey and admit that everything Endi had done was for the best. As for everyone else, they could go along with what needed to be done or…

  Endi stood and listened to the sound of the hammers falling some more. They would thank him for it in the end.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jan Skyddar must have been the only person in the whole of Ashton who found himself unhappy on Sophia’s wedding day, having to force a smile just so he wouldn’t ruin things for her and Sebastian, having to pretend that he was happy for her even though the ache in his heart threatened to tear him into pieces.

  Now that they’d rushed her away to give birth to her child, to her and Sebastian’s child, it was even worse.

  “Would you like to dance with me?” a noblewoman asked. Around Jan, the party seemed to be continuing, the music back in full swing as it turned from celebrating Sophia’s wedding to celebrating the impending heir to the throne.

  The woman was beautiful, elegantly dressed, graceful. If he’d met her a year ago, Jan might have said yes to the dancing, and to almost anything else she suggested. Now, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t feel anything looking at her, because doing it was like staring at a candle compared to the sun. Sophia was the only one who mattered.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to be kind, to be good, to be all the things that he should be. “But there is… someone I am deeply in love with.”

  “Someone waiting for you back in Ishjemme?” the noblewoman said, with a mischievous smile. “That means that she is not here.”

  She reached for one of the laces of Jan’s doublet, and Jan caught her wrist gently but firmly.

  “As I said,” he said with a rueful smile, “I love her very much. I don’t mean it as an insult, but I’m not interested.”

  “A faithful man,” the noblewoman said, as she turned to walk off. “Whoever she is, I hope she knows how lucky she is.”

  “If only things were that simple,” Jan said with a shake of his head.

  He moved through the party trying not to be the ghost at the feast. The last thing he wanted to do was to spoil anyone else’s joy today, least of all Sophia’s. That was the hardest part about loving her so much, he found: it was impossible to be as selfish as he should have been about it. He should have felt jealousy toward Sebastian, should have hated him with a passion. Should have been angry with Sophia for choosing a man who had put her aside once over him.

  He couldn’t do it. He loved Sophia too much for that. He wanted her to be happy more than anything else in the world.

  “Are you well, Jan?” Lucas asked him, moving in with the kind of smoothness that made Jan grateful that the two of them would never cross blades. Jan had always thought that he could fight, but Sophia’s siblings were like something else entirely.

  Maybe it was just as well that Jan’s mind was closed to being read by others, or they might have fought. Jan doubted Lucas would take well to knowing just how hopelessly in love Jan was with his sister.

  “I’m fine,” Jan said. “Maybe a few too many nobles trying to catch me the way a fisherman would go after swordfish.”

  “I’ve had the same problem,” Lucas said. “And it is hard celebrating when at the same time you are thinking about something else.”

  For a moment, Jan thought that Lucas must have somehow seen past even the protections he had in place and seen things he shouldn’t have. Perhaps it was just so clearly written on his face that it didn’t take a mind reader to work it out.

  “I am happy for my sisters,” Lucas said, with a smile. “There’s just a part of me that wants our parents here to witness all of this, and knows I could have been out finding them. Maybe I could have brought them back to see Sophia’s wedding, and the birth of their grandchild.”

  “Or maybe sometimes we just have to be strong and accept that things don’t happen the way we want,” Jan suggested. “And it means that you get to be here. You get to see your niece or nephew.”

  “Niece,” Lucas said. “Visions take the fun out of guessing. You’re right, though, Jan. I’ll wait. You’re a good man, cousin.”

  He clasped Jan’s arm.

  “Thank you,” Jan said, even if he wasn’t sure that he believed it sometimes. A truly good man wouldn’t hope that eventually Sophia would put all of this aside, loving him the same way he loved her.

  “Now,” Lucas said, “I was looking for you because a message came for you by bird. The boy who brought it from the aviary is over there.”

  Jan looked over to where a young man stood by one of the banquet tables, snatching food as though uncertain whether it was really meant for the likes of him.

  “Thank you,” Jan said.

  “You’re welcome. I should get back to Sophia. I want to be there when my niece comes into the world.”

  Lucas walked away, leaving Jan to head over to the messenger. The boy looked a little guilty as Jan approached, stuffing a cake into his mouth and chewing hurriedly.

  “You don’t need to worry,” Jan said. “The party is for everyone, you included. There are some things everyone should get to celebrate.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the boy said. He held out a note. “This came for you.”

  He held out a tightly rolled message for Jan to take. Jan lifted it, reading.

  Jan, Endi has taken Ishjemme. He’s killing people. Rika is his prisoner. I have to do what he says. We need help. Oli.

  The note made Jan freeze in place. He didn’t want to believe it. Endi would never do something like this. He would never betray Ishjemme like this. Oli wouldn�
�t lie, though, and Endi… well, he’d always liked sneaking about in the shadows, and it had been suspicious, the way so many of their ships had turned back midway through the battle for Ashton.

  Even so, the idea that his brother had mounted some kind of coup was hard to comprehend. If anyone else had sent this message, Jan would have called them a liar. As it was… he didn’t know what to do.

  “I can’t tell the others,” he said to himself. If he told his siblings, they would want to rush back to make sure that Ishjemme was safe, and that would deprive Sophia of support that she desperately needed. He couldn’t ignore a message like this though.

  That meant that he had to go home.

  Jan didn’t want to go home. He wanted to be here, as close to Sophia as possible. He wanted to be here in case there was more violence, in case she, or his siblings, needed him. Ashton was just recovering from the conflicts that had ruined it, and leaving it now felt like abandoning it. It felt like abandoning Sophia.

  “Sophia doesn’t need me,” Jan said.

  “What’s that, my lord?” the messenger asked.

  “Nothing,” Jan said. “Can you take a message for me to… take it to Sophia when she’s able to hear it. Take her the message that you gave me, and tell her that I have gone to deal with things. Tell her that…” He couldn’t say any of the things he wanted to then. “Tell her that I will return soon.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the messenger said.

  Jan set off in the direction of the docks. The ships from the invasion were still there, and some of them would listen if he asked for their help. He wouldn’t take many of them, couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Sophia unprotected, but he would need some show of force if he was to convince his brother to back down.

  Sophia didn’t need him right then, but it seemed that his younger brother and sister did. As much as Jan hated to leave Ashton, he couldn’t ignore that. He couldn’t stand by while Endi took Ishjemme by force. He would go there, find out what was truly happening, and deal with it. Maybe when he was done with it, he would have worked out what to do when it came to the woman he loved.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sophia lay upon the bed that the midwife had all but ordered her to, servants crowded around her, and a few nobles, and frankly enough people to make her wonder if a queen got any privacy. She would have ordered them out if she’d had the breath to do it. She couldn’t even ask Sebastian to do it, because the midwife had been quite clear that there would be no men in the room, not even kings.

  “You’re doing well,” the midwife assured her, although Sophia could see the concerns in her mind; the preparations for a hundred different things that might go wrong. It was impossible to hold back her powers right then, thoughts washing over her in waves that seemed to match the pain of her contractions.

  “I’m here,” Kate said, rushing into the room. She looked around the people there.

  Who are all these people? she sent to Sophia.

  I don’t want them here, Sophia managed through the pain. Please, Kate.

  “Okay,” Kate shouted, in a voice that was probably better suited to her new role with the army. “Everyone who isn’t actively me or the midwife get out! No, no arguing. This is a birth, not a public performance. Out!”

  The fact that her hand was on her sword hilt probably helped to get people moving, and in under a minute, the room was empty except for the three of them.

  “Better?” Kate asked, taking her hand.

  “Thank you,” Sophia said, then cried out as a fresh wave of pain hit her.

  “There are some valerian leaves in a bowl there,” the midwife said. “They will help with the pain. Since you just got rid of all the servants, I think you just volunteered to help me, your highness.”

  “Sophia won’t need them,” Kate said.

  Sophia definitely felt as though she needed them, but then she understood what her sister meant. Kate touched her mind, and she felt Lucas too, the two of them working together to draw her mind away from the pain, out of the confines of her body.

  We are here for you, Lucas sent, and so is your kingdom.

  Sophia felt the kingdom around her, the way she had only a few times before. The connection was undeniable. She wasn’t just its queen, she was a part of it, in tune with the living power of everything that breathed within its borders, with the energy of the wind and the rivers, with the cool strength of the hills.

  The midwife’s voice drifted in from a distance. “You need to push with the next contraction, your majesty. Be ready. Push.”

  Push, Sophia, Kate sent.

  Sophia felt her body respond, even though it seemed to be somewhere distant now, so far off that the pain that seemed to be waiting seemed like something that was happening to someone else.

  You need to push harder, Kate sent.

  Sophia did her best, and she could hear cries of pain that she guessed must be her own, even though it felt as though that didn’t touch her. It touched the kingdom, though. She saw storm clouds gathering above her, felt the earth rumble below. With as little control of that connection as she had, she couldn’t stop the roiling buildup.

  The storm clouds burst into a torrent of rain that made rivers swell and drenched the people below. The storm was brief and powerful, the sun coming back into the sky so quickly it was as if it had never happened, a rainbow spreading in its wake.

  You can come back to yourself now, Sophia, Lucas sent. See your daughter.

  He and Kate drew Sophia back in, pulling her back to herself so that she was looking at the room again, breathing hard while the midwife stood a little way away, already wrapping a small form in swaddling. Lucas was there now, having obviously ignored the midwife’s injunction.

  Sophia felt a wave of joy break over her as she heard her daughter cry out for her, gurgling in the way babies did when they wanted their mothers.

  “She sounds strong,” Kate said, taking the baby with surprising gentleness and waiting for the midwife to leave before holding her out for Sophia to take. Sophia reached out for her daughter, looking down into eyes that seemed to take in the entire world. Right then, her daughter was the entire world.

  The vision hit Sophia so quickly that she gasped with it.

  A red-haired young woman stood in a throne room, representatives of a hundred lands kneeling before her. She strode out into the streets, distributing bread to the poor, picking up flowers strewn at her feet so that she could laughingly make a crown of them for a group of children. She reached out for a wilted flower and brought it back to health…

  …She strode through the middle of a battlefield, a blade in her hand, thrusting down into the bodies of the dying, ending their attempts to cling to life. She reached down for a young man and drew the life out of him with a touch, feeding it into the great well of power that would let her heal her own troops…

  …She danced in the middle of a ball, laughing as she spun, obviously loved by those around her. Artists worked at the side of the room with everything from paint to stone to magic, creating works so beautiful they almost hurt the eye to look at them. She welcomed the poor into the feast, not as charity, but because she didn’t see any difference between feeding her friends and feeding everyone who was hungry…

  …She stood at the lip of a fighting pit, before a group of nobles who shook as they knelt, looking up at her with a mixture of fear and hatred that made Sophia wince to see it.

  “You betrayed me,” she said, in a voice of almost perfect beauty. “You could have had everything, and all you had to do was follow my commands.”

  “And be no better than slaves!” one of the men said.

  She stepped toward them, a sword in her hand. “There must be a price for that.”

  She moved close, and the killing began while around her the crowd chanted one word, a name, over and over “Christina, Christina…”

  Sophia snapped back to herself, staring down at her daughter, not understanding what had just happened. Sophia understoo
d the feel of a real vision by now, but she didn’t understand what all of this meant. It felt like two sets of visions at once, each contradicting the other. They couldn’t both be true, could they?

  “Sophia, what is it?” Kate asked.

  “I… I had a vision,” Sophia said. “A vision about my daughter.”

  “What kind of vision?” Lucas asked.

  “I don’t understand it,” Sophia said. “I saw her, and half the time she was doing these beautiful, wonderful things, and the rest… it was so cruel, so evil.”

  Show us, Kate suggested.

  Sophia did her best, sending across the images of the vision to both of them. Even like this, she didn’t feel as though she got the full sense of it across to them. She couldn’t convey how wonderful and how terrifying it felt, how powerfully real it all was, even compared to the other visions she’d had.

  “May I touch her mind?” Lucas asked, when Sophia had done it.

  Sophia nodded, guessing that he was checking for any sign that her daughter wasn’t what she appeared to be. After what Siobhan had tried to do, trying to take over her unborn form, the prospect of it was terrifying.

  “She’s still herself,” Lucas said, “but I can feel the power there. She’s going to be stronger than any of us, I think.”

  “What do the visions mean, though?” Sophia asked them. Her daughter looked so perfect in her arms. Sophia couldn’t imagine her ever stalking through a battlefield, sucking the life out of people the way the Master of Crows might have with his birds.

  “Maybe they’re possibilities,” Kate suggested. “Siobhan used to talk about looking at the strands of the future, picking out the things that would make other things happen. Maybe these are two ways that her life could turn out.”

  “But we don’t know what makes the difference,” Sophia said. “We don’t know how to make sure that the good things happen.”

  “You raise her with love,” Lucas said. “You teach her well. You help her to move toward the light, not the dark. Little Christina will have power, whatever you do, but you can help her to use it well.”