by Rachel Aaron
The man bowed slightly to the duke and, holding the box in both hands, walked to the door. He did not bow to Josef, just slid by him and started down the stairs. Josef ignored the insult, focusing instead on his cousin and, so far as Josef could tell, greatest enemy in Osera.
“Ah,” Finley said, turning at last to Josef. “The prince graces me with his presence.”
Josef hooked his thumbs into his sword belt. “What do you want?”
Finley blithely ignored him. “I was just reporting our latest bit of bad luck to the Whitefall running the Council’s forces, Lord Myron.” He crossed the room as he spoke, stopping in front of a small wooden cabinet set between the windows. He unlocked the door with a key from his pocket. Inside was a cut-glass bottle filled with amber liquid. Finley took it out with loving hands, smiling at Josef over the glass stopper. “Would you like a drink?”
“No,” Josef said. “What are you doing out here with the Relay point? It’s supposed to be kept in the palace for the queen’s use only.”
“The first one is,” Finley said, reaching back into the cabinet for a crystal tumbler. “That was our second point, provided for this watchtower.”
“Osera has two Relay points?” Josef scoffed. “Since when? I thought they were incredibly rare.”
“They are,” Finley said, filling his glass halfway. “But considering how this tower will be the first to spot the Empress’s fleet, I convinced the Council to give us another.”
Josef narrowed his eyes. “So what were you relaying just now?”
“That,” the duke said, tipping his glass toward the southern window.
Josef turned skeptically. He couldn’t see much because of the cliffs, but he could see what looked like a plume of black smoke billowing up from somewhere down the coast.
Josef glanced back at the duke. “What’s that?”
“Our clingfire depot,” the duke said. “Or, rather, it was.”
Josef swallowed. Clingfire was an old Oseran secret, a blend of pitch and sticky oil that clung to wood and burned even when wet. It had been invented so that Oseran pirates on their fast, narrow ships could take down larger freighters. It was also the only way the Oseran navy had been able to fight the Empress’s palace ships.
“What happened?”
“We’re not sure,” Finley said, his voice grave. “The whole depot went up sometime early this morning. It’s been burning for nearly twelve hours already, and since we had almost five tons of clingfire ready for the Empress’s assault, it will likely burn another twelve.”
“Five tons?” Josef took a step back. He’d never heard of so much clingfire in one place.
“At least,” Finley said. “Osera’s not the little fishing village you left, Thereson. My factories have been producing clingfire day and night on the queen’s order since word came that the Empress was on the move. I’d ordered it stored on one of the uninhabited southern islands for safety purposes, and good thing too. If we’d kept it in the city, the whole island would be burning by now.”
Josef glanced again at the column of smoke. “You think it was arson?”
“Arson or carelessness,” the duke said, sipping his drink. “Your wife’s investigating as we speak, so I suppose we’ll know soon enough. I may not like Adela, but even I can admit she’s good at what she does.” He left the words hanging, watching Josef over the rim of his glass.
Josef got the point well enough. “Better than me,” he finished.
“Well,” the duke said. “You ran away, so I guess we’ll never know what could have been.”
Josef barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “I’ve got better things to do today than listen to you gripe, Finley,” he said. “If you’ve got something to say, say it. Otherwise, I’ll be on my way.”
“You haven’t changed a bit, have you, Josef Liechten?” Finley said, setting his drink down on the window ledge with a clink. “Still unable to even play at manners.”
“I don’t play at anything,” Josef said. “Get on with it.”
The corner of the duke’s mouth twitched. “Very well,” he said. “I called you out here because I would like to propose an arrangement. These last two days have been very hard on you, haven’t they, prince? You’ve never bothered to hide how much you hate being in your own country. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re still around.”
Josef’s glower deepened, and the duke began to grin. “I can see I’m taxing your miniscule patience, so I’ll get straight to the point. I want you to leave.”
“I know that,” Josef growled.
“No,” the duke said. “I mean I want you to vanish. Go. Crawl back to whatever miserable, violent life you enjoyed before Theresa got this fool idea of grandchildren.”
Josef bared his teeth. “If this is about the damn succession—”
“The succession does not concern me,” the duke said. “Whatever hopes your mother holds, the truth is that my line will inherit the Throne of Iron Lions. Ancient as the blood of the Eisenlowe is, Osera is a land ruled by the strong, not by unborn children.”
“And you would be that strength?”
“Of course,” the duke answered. “I’ve been leading Osera since your mother first fell ill years ago. It was my money and my sway that fortified this bay. My pull with the Council that got us two Relay points, my shipyards that built a fleet of runners, and my factories that produced the five tons of clingfire it’s going to take to sink an armada of palace ships.”
Josef cocked his head toward the plume of smoke. “You mean the five tons that’s burning right now?”
“A minor setback,” the duke snapped. “The Empress won’t be here for another month and a half. That’s more than enough time to rebuild our supplies and secure my rule.”
“Your rule?” Josef said, scowling. “I hate to disappoint you, Finley, but last I checked, my mother was still alive.”
“Not for much longer,” the duke said, smiling. “For all your faults, Thereson, you’re a loving son, but you’re kidding yourself if you actually believe our dear queen will be alive to lead Osera to another victory over the Empress.”
“Shut your mouth, Finley,” Josef said, taking a menacing step forward. “Or I will shut it for you.”
Finley rolled his eyes. “Spare me the bravado. Believe it or not, my boy, I’m actually on your side. You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you here either, so why shouldn’t we work together to get you out?”
“Because I’m not going,” Josef said. “I made a promise to my mother, and I mean to keep it.”
“How novel of you,” Duke Finley said, grabbing his drink again. He downed the rest of the glass in one swallow, keeping his eyes on Josef the whole time. “Tell me, Thereson,” he said when he’d finished. “Are you trying to be as difficult as possible, or it is your natural state?”
“What do you care, anyway?” Josef yelled. “You just said you’re not worried about the succession. Shouldn’t you be off giving orders and being kingly? Why are you wasting time with me?”
“Because you are in my way,” Finley yelled back, slamming his glass on the stone so hard it cracked. “You are a millstone around this country’s neck, Josef Liechten. You always were, what with your moods and your stubbornness. But just when the people were learning to love you for your mother’s sake, you run away to become a traveling swordsman and a thief.” The duke let go of his cracked glass with a scowl. “We all breathed a sigh of relief when you left. The selfish boy was gone, and good riddance. But your selfishness knows no end, does it? For here you are again, back to weigh down your country one last time at the hour of her greatest need.”
Josef took a deep, shaking breath. “You think I don’t know that I let this country down?” he said. “No one was more aware of how great a failure I was than myself.”
“Good,” the duke said. “So prove it. Leave. Your presence in Osera is a disruption. The people are confused. They fear that this wandering swordsman, this no-account murderer who a
bandoned them has returned to be king. This fear causes division and distraction at the time when we must be the most focused and united. If you love your mother, Thereson, if you want to preserve the country she fought so hard for all her life, then do us all a favor and remove yourself from it. I swear I will take good care of our people. I will defeat the Empress and lead Osera into an even brighter age of wealth and prosperity. I will be the king you never could be, and I will even make sure your legacy of failure is forgotten. All you have to do is go.”
Finley reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy bag. He swung his arm, tossing the bag on the floor between them. It landed with a bright, metal chink, spilling open in a shower of gold coins.
“That’s a hundred gold standards,” the duke said. “There’s also a pledge that can be used in Zarin for five hundred more. If you ever loved Osera, take it and leave before you do irreparable harm.”
Josef stared at the bag of coins, and then, without a word, he swung his boot back and kicked it as hard as he could. The kick sent the gold flying, the coins tinkling like golden bells as they scattered across the heavy wooden planks.
The duke stepped back in surprise as coins bounced across his boots. When he raised his head, his face was pale with rage. “That was very foolish.”
“Then you should have expected it,” Josef said. “Given your opinion of me.”
Finley began to shake, but before he could open his mouth, Josef moved in. He closed the distance between them in one long step, pointing his finger right in the duke’s face.
“There’s only one understanding we need between us, cousin,” he whispered, his voice sharp as his blades. “Whether my mother is alive to see it or not, I will honor her wish and continue the blood of our house. That wish is the only thing keeping me in this country, and the moment it is fulfilled, I will vanish so quickly not even you will be able to find fault. But until that time, nothing, not gold, not threats, not even poison in the night, nothing is going to make me abandon the one duty my mother has ever asked of me that I could actually deliver. Everything else, the throne, the people, I gladly leave to you, but I will not betray my promise now that I’ve made it, and I’m not going anywhere.”
With a final glare, Josef turned on his heel and walked toward the door. Behind him, he heard the duke’s boots scrape as the old man recovered.
“Thereson!”
Josef stopped and looked over his shoulder. The duke had pulled himself up to his full height, his face scarlet with barely leashed fury. “I have given you every chance to do right by your country, but if you will not leave on your own, I will not hesitate to do what is best for Osera.”
Josef’s hands went back to rest on the swords at his hip. “You’re welcome to try, old man.” With that, he flashed the duke a long, bloodthirsty smile and walked out the door.
The servant was waiting just outside. Josef pushed past him, sweeping down the stairs. When he reached the bottom of the tower, he kept going, walking past the waiting carriage to the rutted road leading back to the city. The moment he hit the dirt, he started jogging, his legs eating the distance in long steps as he pushed up the slope into the poor, crater-pocked neighborhoods covering Osera’s eastern side. People came out to gawk at him as he passed, the tall man with his fine clothes hidden under blades. Josef ignored the stares and kept running, his hands clenched in white-knuckled fists.
The sun was going down by the time he reached the palace at the top of mountain. Servants threw themselves out of his way as he stomped through the rear gate. He heard them whispering his name as he crossed the yard, as well as other things—thief, deserter, murderer, disappointment, failure—before he shut his ears and set himself on a single-minded path back to his room.
When he arrived, he opened his door to find Nico and Eli sitting at his table eating his dinner.
“Welcome back,” Eli said around an enormous mouthful of food, glancing over his shoulder just long enough to give Josef a stuff-cheeked smile. “How was the meeting?”
Josef ignored the question. “What are you doing?” he said, shutting the door.
“Dinner,” Eli said, turning back to the table. “We started without you. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Wouldn’t matter if I did,” Josef said, looking at the decimated plates. “There’s not enough left to get mad over.”
“You should be grateful,” Eli said, shoving another forkful of potatoes in his mouth. “A man came by about a half hour ago with a message from your wife. Something about a fire? Anyway, he said that she said to tell you that she’s going to be late tonight and you should eat without her, so I took the liberty of telling him to go ahead and bring up your dinner. After all”—Eli swallowed loudly—“we’ll never get a better chance to test it for poison without having to worry about the sweet princess.”
Josef’s eyebrows shot up. “So you decided to test the food for poison by eating it all? That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
“You have no vision,” Eli said. “I’ll have you know I have a very sophisticated pallet for this sort of thing. The old Monpress fed me every poison under the sun during my thief training days. Ah,” he said, licking his fingers. “Memories.”
Josef shook his head. “So what have you found?”
“Nothing,” Eli said, snatching the last delicately folded roll from the basket at the center of the table. “Your food seems perfectly safe, so either your poisoner decided to take the night off, or it’s not coming through the food.”
“Or it’s something you don’t recognize,” Josef added.
“Impossible,” Eli said. “If it’s used in the Council Kingdoms, I’ve tasted it. Poisoning’s a subtle art, but it’s very set in its ways.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Josef muttered. He walked over to the table and picked up a plate of beef scraps, all that was left of what must have been a lovely roast. “Meanwhile, you can get out. I’m going to wait up for Adela. I have some questions to ask her.”
Eli shrugged and stood, taking his wineglass with him. “I’m going to poke my nose down around the castle,” he said, refilling his glass to the rim from the bottle on the mantel. “Do a little goodwill work with the spirits, just in case we have to make a quick getaway.”
Josef ignored the stab of bitterness that came with that. “What makes you think we’ll be leaving?”
“First rule of thievery: Never be without a quick exit,” Eli said, sipping the top of his now very full glass. “Of course, there’s also the fact that you just walked in from a meeting with a powerful man who doesn’t like you very much looking like you’re ready to kill something. Even without the rules, that’s reason enough for me.”
Josef couldn’t argue that point, so he let Eli go. But when Nico got up to follow, he reached out.
“Stay,” he said, grabbing her shoulder gently. “Please. I want you to help keep an eye on things, in case I fall asleep again.”
“You want me to stay here,” she said, slowly. “With you and your wife?”
“Yes,” Josef said. “In case I—”
“Fall asleep again,” she finished, turning away. “I heard you the first time.”
She vanished into the long shadows of the dressing room before he could add anything else, and Josef bit back a curse. He was trying to think of something to say when the door creaked, and he snapped his head around to see Eli hovering.
“Josef,” he said, very quietly. “Do you want to talk about—”
“No,” Josef said.
Eli bit his lip and, for a long, tense moment, Josef worried that the thief would push. But then Eli nodded and vanished into the hall, closing the door silently behind him. Once he was sure Eli was gone, Josef sat down on the couch and stared at the destroyed remains of his dinner, mechanically shoving the last scraps of the roast into his mouth as he waited for his wife to appear.
CHAPTER
14
The Empress stood on the balcony at the top of her war palace,
looking over her fleet. It was an impressive sight. Even Nara, who had fielded countless armies in her conquest of the continent that was now her Empire, had never seen its like.
Palace ships filled the bay, packed so close that the sailors could step from one ship to the next without stretching their legs. Overhead, wind spirits kept a smooth inland wind blowing at her command, filling the enormous sails and keeping the ships together against the ocean’s tide. Each palace ship was large enough to fill three blocks in one of her well-ordered cities and as tall as the war palace at Istalirin would be were it perched on the sea instead of a mountain. Square sails as large as wheat fields hung from the tower masts, and each enormous, tar-black, iron-girded wood hull was packed to capacity with men ready to die at her command.
For the first time in many centuries, Nara felt a quickening of the excitement that came before a conquest. She had emptied her garrisons for this day, marched her troops to the bay at Istalirin from all corners of her Empire. Before her lay the largest fleet ever assembled, carrying the largest army she’d ever fielded, the largest army the world had ever seen.
“It’s beautiful,” said a deep voice beside her.
Nara caught herself seconds before she jumped. Excitement turned to cold rage as she turned to face the man who had impertinently joined her on her balcony.
Den wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were locked on the fleet, his face pulled into a wide, white-toothed grin that was more snarl than smile. “I think that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever see.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” Nara said sharply. “But I didn’t build it for you.”
“Pity,” Den said with a sigh. “It would be a real challenge to take that army.”
Nara sighed. “That’s an absurd joke, Warlord.”
“I don’t make jokes,” Den said, reaching in his pocket. “Look here, I made you something.”