“Fraine?”
His sister stood by the torch and made not a move toward him. It had been nearly ten years since he had seen her, but her face held not one ounce of joy. Nor was she bound; however, as he looked closer, there was something missing in her eyes—they were as blank as a blyweed user.
Raed shot a glance back at Zofiya, who merely smiled. “Fraine”—Raed ventured cautiously forward, his eyes darting into the darkness—“what have they done to you?”
“That isn’t the right question you know, Brother. You should be asking what I have done to you.” Her voice was strangely flat.
Raed felt his spine run with ice water as a terrible sensation of unreality crept over him. This couldn’t be Fraine! It had to be some cruel illusion of his beloved sister. He couldn’t have traveled all this way to find this.
“Fraine?”
“Do stop using my name!” she hissed, finally moving forward. Dimly, Raed realized that his sister was as tall as he. “Don’t tell me you honestly thought I had been kidnapped?”
Everything was still. Even the wind off the dunes had died down. Raed’s mouth was dry. He did not know what to say.
“But Tang said . . . ” He was grasping at anything—any facts.
“I am not as blinded by old loyalties as I once was.” Tangyre Greene walked into the light to stand next to Fraine.
This was like some sort of grotesque stage play. Raed had always prided himself on his quick wits, and yet, though everything was making a kind of cruel sense, he still couldn’t bear to accept it. He shook his head. “What would make my family do this to me?” It was whispered under his breath, but the two women heard him well enough.
Tangyre glanced at her Princess but saw that for the moment she had the floor. At least Captain Greene had enough loyalty to look guilty. “It’s not about you, my Prince—but about what you have failed to do.”
Raed managed to find some dull anger. He glared at her. “And what is that?”
“Protect your family.” Her jaw clenched. “You have been happy to leave your father and sister to rot on that stinking island.”
“I had no choice.” He turned to Fraine, pushing aside the shade of their mother that hung between them. “You have to know that.”
The corner of her lips twitched. Her repRaed reaen it came, was finally full of some kind of emotion—it was just a pity that it was real anger. “I’m still young, Raed—and that place is filled with the old and broken. You just left me there.”
That was when the Pretender knew and understood why his sister had turned on her own kin. He knew, because he was responsible. He knew, because he had chosen to leave the Dominion and take the chance, since they were close, to reunite with his family. They rarely visited the mainland, but a loyal lord, who lived on a remote peninsular, invited them to celebrate the harvest with him. The risks were very low—at least from their enemies.
Back then the Rossin Curse had been merely a quaint legend—something that they chuckled about over family dinners. It was sheer chance that he had spent his youth from the age of ten aboard a ship, learning to lead and to fight and surrounded by the open water that geists could not traverse.
When the Rossin took him, right during just such a meal, there had been no more laughter. Raed remembered the tearing sensation deep in his flesh, hearing the baying of the Beast and the screams of those around him. He even recalled the feeling of the bullet’s strike as the more quick-witted of his father’s guards tried to stop him. The worst memory, however, was of the jaws of the Rossin closing around his mother, the scent of her fear and the taste of her blood.
Raed clenched his teeth, ravaged again by those sensations, as if they had occurred only yesterday. He had awoken aching, screaming and covered in the lifeblood of the one who bore him. His father had been destroyed, but out of some kind of guilt of his own had sent his only son out onto the world’s oceans. They had all learned that day the true sting of myth.
And now here was Fraine, looking at him with the same rage but untempered by any remorse. Raed could have spoken in his defense, said something about the Curse or the Beast or how he had no choice. Instead he remained silent, his jaw locked around any reply.
“You robbed me of my mother,” Fraine said, as Tangyre squeezed her shoulder. “And then you abandoned me. I wanted a life, but instead I was trapped with Father.”
At five there would be only flashes of memory for his sister, but he suddenly could see through her eyes: an island full of the elderly and damaged. Zofiya was silent, swaying slightly, and barely taking any notice of the little family drama being played out.
“You were safe there,” he finally croaked out. “And we thought it was better you were safe than—”
“What I had there was not worth saving.” Her hand went to her sword hilt, and abruptly Raed realized she was dressed for war. So mesmerized had he been that he had not noticed her Imperial dress. The dress of purple and dark blue of their family, including the Rising Star Crest of the Rossin heir.
“This is insanity, Fraine! Why are you wearing that?” Raed lurched forward, only to have his feet knocked out from under him by Zofiya.
But it was Tang who replied, “As heir to the Rossin name, Fraine will have excellent marriage prospects. Especially once the Empress stands on the throne. She will cancel the price on her head.”
The thing behind Zofiya’s eyes shifted, and Raed felt himself plunge deeper into madness. “Empress?”
The smile on her face was stretched. “With your sister’s backing, the rebel Princes will fall into line. I will rule, and in return my Bright Lady will help your sister by taking care of the Rossin. Once the faithful have gathered tomorrow, you will die; he will die with you and not be passed on to her.”
Raed pressed his lips together lest a cry escape him. When suicide had tempted him, it was the thought that Fraine would suffer the Rossin if he did, which stopped him. Apparently none of this mattered to her—he was simply the man who had killed her mother and any chance of a happy life.
“I want to watch you suffer first. I want you to know real loss.” Fraine got up, brushed off her pants and gestured to the guards waiting in the darkness. Raed managed to struggle to his knees just as his crew was dragged through the sand dunes; all were bound, and many looked as though they had put up a fierce fight.
Abruptly he knew what their fate was. “No!” Pulling his feet under him, he charged at the guard nearest him holding the silent and bruised Snook. The Young Pretender never reached them.
Other guards sprang from the shadows. Raed fought back with forehead and shoulder, but they knocked him down quickly, and with rifle butts and fists kept him down. The Young Pretender swore, snarled and wished for the Rossin to take him, but nothing happened. He had the wind knocked out of him, and when they were done, he was left staring at the stars.
“Get him up.” Fraine’s voice reached him like he was underwater. It should have come as no surprise to him that it was Isseriah who tugged Raed back up onto his knees. Under the rule of a new Rossin Emperor it was certain that the rebel had been promised his earldom back. Raed had no more venom, but he spat at the traitor’s feet.
Bruised and heartsick, the Young Pretender looked at his five crew members: Snook, Laython, Balis, Nyre and the young blade Iyle. They looked back at him with clenched jaws, dark eyes and resignation. They knew as well as he what was coming.
“It has been a pleasure to sail the waters with you, my Prince.” Snook tilted her head up, the light washing over her narrow, sweet face. She had never used his title as Aachon was wont to do. That she did so now poured cold horror through him.
“Long live Prince Raed,” she cried, and the other four crew members repeated her call as if their lives depended on it—but it made not one jot of difference.
“It’s been my honor,” Raed choked out.
He was held tightly as, in one practiced move, all five guards slit all five throats. Not one of them cried for mercy. The gu
shing of blood flooded over the sand, and then they let the bodies drop. Like that, they were no longer human, just bundles of meat he had once known, loved and sailed with.
Raed bellowed, reaching for the rage of the Rossin, not caring what happened after—but all he found was emptiness. This was his crew. They had followed him for years, and he’d taken them to their deaths far from the oceans they loved. Like everything else, it was his fault.
“I see now, Brother”—Raed glanced up as his sister’s words fell on him like rough stones—“that you do in fact have a heart. That is, until they cut it out of you.”
What could he say to his sister? No matter how many times Raed told himself that it was the Curse, the Beast, the Rossin that had torn their mother to shreds, he could not shake the guilt that it had been him in some way.
For Fraine, the Young Pretender could find no words. She was not the little sister he had carried on his shoulders, but neither was he that carefree lad anmore. The Rossin had killed both of them along with their mother.
Fraine and Tangyre looked down at him for a second. Raed wanted them to stop looking at him, wanted it to be over with. Every bone and muscle ached in his body, but it was not as terrible as the pain in his soul—if he had a soul.
His sister looked across at Zofiya. “Will it be painful?”
The Grand Duchess hummed a little tune under her breath, her eyes on the looming mound that blackened the horizon. “They will all be gathered tomorrow, and the Bright One will descend.”
Zofiya’s laugh cracked halfway through, and even in his pain Raed could hear there was less and less of herself in her voice. He knew all about being eaten up from the inside. “Oh, it will hurt. The Bright One will devour his heart and brain and through them the Beast inside.”
In the firelight Fraine swallowed hard, for a moment looking pale, but she regained her composure and nodded. “Good . . . I want him to suffer just as our mother did. I want him to know pain and fear before he dies.”
“That you can be guaranteed.” The Grand Duchess sketched a little mocking bow. “Now, get you to the north and rouse the Princes there to our cause.”
Then the two women who had brought him to this fate turned on their heels, and quickly the darkness took them.
Raed shook himself, feeling the blood of his crew beginning to pool around his knees. He knew he had to stop Zofiya—she would tear the Empire apart. Even if she did manage to claim the throne, it would mean death and war for years—maybe generations.
“Zofiya,” he said, twisting around, “what are you thinking? You will have to kill your brother to take the crown. Everything I have seen says you love him dearly!”
Her eyes, when they looked at him, were confused, as if the spirit of the Grand Duchess was down there somehow, swimming desperately toward comprehension but unable to find it.
Sensing a chance, Raed tried to throw her a lifeline. “You swore to protect Kaleva! He is your brother—your blood.”
A flicker of horror passed over her finely carved face, the look of a sister who did still love her sibling. Yet even as hope surged in Raed, the expression passed, and she was once more a statue of calm. “The Emperor has always despised religion. He will never accept the Bright One as I have. I will show them the proper path.”
“You will bring about chaos!” Raed tried to surge to his feet but was held down by three guards.
Zofiya’s mouth formed a smile that was not her own. “And that will serve my mistress well.” She turned and faced the darkness on the horizon, the place where no stars burned. “Bring him—we go to make ready for her.”
Raed struggled weakly, but it was now only a primitive survival instinct. He had never felt more beaten and broken. It was almost enough to make him yearn for the next day. Almost.
TWENTY-SIX
The Unseen Prince
Dragging a bleeding Abbot through the almost empty corridors of the palace was not how Sorcha had imagined this visit to Orinthal ending up. Yet that was exactly what they were going to do.
y had stopped briefly to bind Yohari’s wounds, and Merrick had pronounced it a clean through-and-through stab wound. The Abbot must have flinched away from Delie’s strike with her sword at just the right moment. Still, it bled plenty, and the Abbot, hardly used to a life of stabbings, was not the best patient. If anyone thought Deacons were stalwart, they would have been surprised at his wincing and grumbling.
Still, Merrick was proficient in the art of field medicine, as Sensitives often had to be, and the palace would have much better facilities.
They finally reached it by scrambling through every alley and backyard in Orinthal—at least that was how it felt to Sorcha. The gate was devoid of any guards and even hung slightly ajar.
Sorcha ached to stop and light a cigar—at the very least a cigarillo. It was her usual reaction to stress and the impending feeling of doom.
“It must be quite the party if even the palace guards have given up their posts,” she commented, hitching the Abbot a little higher. His arm was over her shoulder, and his badge of the Order was digging into her neck. Such little discomforts at time like this shouldn’t have mattered—but they did.
The older man winced and clutched his side. “The number of Hatipai’s devotees is no less in the palace.”
“Well then,” she said jauntily, “let us hope they have all gone off for the event, or we shall make most unwelcome visitors.”
Merrick in his rather travel-stained green cloak, shared his Center with Sorcha, and she was able to breathe a little easier; there were many people still in the palace, but not so many that it appeared to be an ambush.
Pushing open the gates, they staggered in. Whatever had happened here was very similar to what had happened in the town. It looked as though some kind of wild party had taken place: pictures hung askew, amphoras of water lay broken on the floor, and there was the distinct odor of sweat in the air. It was entirely different from the palace that Sorcha had been in only a few hours before.
“We must find the Prince.” Abbot Yohari wheezed. “We must make sure he is alive.”
All traces of the joviality that the Chiomese Abbot had exhibited on their first meeting were gone. As they worked their way closer to the throne room, the damage got worse; now it was more like a riot than student pranks. In one doorway they passed there were several bodies.
“Looks like some guards tried to make a stand,” Merrick whispered, though the corpses were far past caring. About ten guards blocked a corridor along with bodies of petitioners, servants and bureaucrats. Like all battlegrounds, it smelled rank, but the Sensitive stopped to look with his Center. “No shades or spectyrs.”
“By the Bones, that would be all we need.” Though Sorcha knew that by day’s end there would be plenty to clean up in Chioma, she had other more pressing issues.
After they skirted the pile of corpses, they made it to the throne room. Rather unsurprisingly, it was barred. “He’s inside.” Before she could stop him, Merrick strode forward and banged on the huge doors. The brass rang like a bell, and Sorcha flinched. If there were any enemies around, it might just sound like a dinner bell.
Her partner was well educated and talented—yet the one thing he lacked was real-world experience.
“They better let us in now,” Sorcha muttered to the Abbot, and he rimaced across at her.
“Indeed.”
All it took was a whispered conversation through the viewing port, and the mechanism on the other side of the door sprang into life. The lock snapped free, the cogs whirred, and the doors swung open. Sorcha had not noted the lock on the doors before—probably because it was used very rarely. Not many throne rooms had locks, since it was the object of the room to let people in.
Once again the Prince of Chioma had proved to be rather forward thinking. Either that or justifiably paranoid.
The three Deacons found themselves ushered into the throne room. If they needed proof that a battle had indeed been fought, then it wa
s here in the heart of the Prince’s kingdom. The room was full of civilians nursing wounds: women of the harem with wide eyes, clerks tending one another’s injuries, and old women from the kitchen sitting shaking in the seats once occupied by the cream of Chiomese society. A couple of guards manned the door, and a handful of civil servants clustered around Onika at the far end of the room.
Nothing about this group said they were capable of holding off a riot, so Sorcha was a little confused. Even the huge brass door and its workings could not have resisted a decent attack. Yet here they were, the survivors of a wave of madness.
Abbot Yohari, who must have been conserving his energy for this moment, pulled loose of Merrick and Sorcha and tottered his way toward the Prince. The little huddle around Onika gave way before him, some even remembering to bow. The Prince spun about as Yohari stood swaying before him.
“Abbot?” His voice was calm but with the underlying edge of stress. “Where are your Deacons? We are counting on them to stem this tide of violence!”
Yohari sketched a bow and almost toppled. The Prince caught his wrist and guided him over to the steps of the dais as if he was leading his grandfather. “Your Highness”—the Abbot shook his head—“they are all gone. All gone—to her. ”
A ripple of gasps and sobs ran through the little crowd. Soon the survivors were whispering and clutching one another. Sorcha didn’t need Merrick’s aid to see despair taking hold.
Even the Prince took a step back and sank down next to the Abbot.
This could quickly get out of hand. Sorcha had dealt with plenty of groups beset with geists; those who lost hope and the will to fight never lasted long. It might not be the right time, but it was the only time. She pushed her hair back out of her face and flicked a look at Merrick.
Yohari was too injured and too defeated to lead anything. They had to take charge, so Sorcha cleared her throat and spoke. “Your Highness, I think the time for pretense is over.”
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