by Jordan Rivet
Dara caught the bead of Fire in her palm and dropped to her knees. She crawled across the rickety boards to the wall and forced the bead of Fire into the stones with trembling hands, leaving the steel residue behind like a thumbprint. Horror filled her. It couldn’t be true. Her father couldn’t be the one behind all this. Not Rafe Ruminor, the city’s most respected practitioner of the Fire Arts. He couldn’t have ordered the prince and princess to be kidnapped, perhaps killed. He couldn’t have been involved in the murder of the king.
Selivia was sobbing incoherently. She didn’t seem to have followed the exchange between Dara and Farr, who now lay dead beside her. Dead. At Dara’s hands.
Dara approached them on trembling legs. She took Selivia’s arm and helped her up.
“We have to get back to the castle,” she said urgently. “There may be more of them.”
“You stabbed him?” Selivia gasped.
“You’re safe now,” Dara said, choosing not to correct her. “That’s all that matters. Quickly.”
“Are Sora and Siv okay?”
“They’re fine. We need to move, Princess.”
“It’s not true about my father, is it?” Selivia said. “He can’t be dead.”
“I don’t know,” Dara said. Her heart constricted in her chest at the sorrow and pain on the young princess’s face. This had been Dara’s father’s doing. He had been the one all along. She made herself look down at Farr’s blank face before she walked away.
They hurried back along the boardwalk. They had to get far away from the dead Fireworker before someone spotted them. If her father found out she had been the one to thwart his plans . . . Dara was afraid to follow that line of thought.
They climbed back up the stone staircase. Siv was waiting for them, his eye turning purple from the fistfight. He held the man whose hand had been cut off in a headlock. A trail of blood splattered on the steps indicated he had tried to crawl away. He fell unconscious from Siv’s headlock as Dara and Selivia approached.
The man Siv had punched was still out cold. The swordsman with the golden-brown hair lay dead on the stairs, his comrade’s knife still sticking out of his chest. Sora sat a few steps up, knees pulled up to her chest. Siv had given her the Fire Blade, and she was pointing it at the dead man as if she was afraid he’d rise again.
Selivia cried harder when she saw her brother and sister. She dove into Sora’s arms and sobbed into her shoulder. Siv met Dara’s eyes, full of grief and gratitude. Without speaking, she lowered the Savven and sat on the stones beside him, helping him keep watch over the unconscious men.
Pool and a host of Castle Guards found them moments later. None of the more recent hires were among them. They took charge of the two living prisoners and spread out to search for additional threats.
Pool’s face was thunderous, and he had a bandage hastily wrapped around an ugly wound in his side.
“We have been betrayed!” Pool said. “The Guard is compromised. Heads will roll in the very literal sense of the word. Is that Dara Ruminor?”
“She saved me,” Selivia said.
“You are most fortunate to have such a competent protector. As for this blackguard,” Pool kicked the unconscious man, “he is one of the offending treacherous men in our cohort. When I find the remaining traitors responsible for this grievous—”
Siv stood, and Pool stopped speaking abruptly.
“Is it true?” Siv said. His face was grave, and he looked ten years older in that moment.
Pool inclined his head.
“I am sorry, my prince,” he said. “Your father is dead.”
29.
The King
SIV walked through mist toward the castle. Twilight descended over Vertigon. Cold wind swept around the little group as they climbed and climbed. The air crackled with electricity, promising one hell of a storm.
Shouts rang over the mountain. Siv’s people were still unsure what had happened this day. The guards murmured amongst themselves, tense and wary. One of their prisoners moaned but didn’t manage to regain consciousness. It didn’t matter. There’d be time to question him later.
Siv’s sisters had stopped crying. Both were breathing in shuddering, shocked gasps. They clung to his sleeves, which were dampened with mist and the blood of his attacker. They clung as if Siv could protect them from the truth they were about to face.
He kept his eyes turned toward the castle. Lights blazed in the tall windows as night fell slowly around them.
Dara walked behind them. He could sense her, even though he didn’t turn his gaze from the castle. She was a solid, warm presence at his back. A burning torch in the darkness.
They had been betrayed. Pool explained it as they trudged onward. The new company of Castle Guards Bandobar had hired were false. The traitorous guardsmen had subdued Pool and the Hurling twins and taken over their posts at the Cup, along with additional conspirators dressed in Amintelle colors. As soon as the news of the king’s death reached the arena, they had whisked Siv and his sisters away. The news had struck Siv dumb, blinding him to the fact that some of the men escorting them were strangers. Dara hadn’t fallen for it, though.
And his father. His father had dropped dead over his noon tea. Poisoned. Siv had always known that was the greatest danger to his family. Not swordsmen. Not duelists he could best if he trained hard enough. A sneaking, treacherous drop of death.
When they reached the gates of the castle, the mists had settled in, thick like smoke. Bandobar, his father’s friend and guard, stood before them.
He dropped to his knees on the stones and held out the hilt of his sword. Siv knew what Bandobar expected him to do. Bandobar had failed. His king, his friend, had fallen. He had hired untrustworthy men. He hadn’t protected the lives in his charge.
Bandobar’s face showed no fear as Siv took the sword from his grasp.
Siv studied the blade as the mist swirled around them. It was a Fire Blade, like the one borne by the swordsman he and Dara had fought, the one he had killed. It could be wielded faster and more accurately than a cold steel weapon. Bandobar had carried it with honor for decades. But it hadn’t been enough.
“Please,” Bandobar said. He stretched out his arms, leaving his chest and throat exposed.
Selivia started crying again. A chill wind whipped across Siv’s face. He remembered what his father had said about wisdom, about the mantle of responsibility for which he should have been prepared.
“Please, Sivarrion,” Bandobar said, using his name the same way his father always had. “Do it.”
Siv stared at Bandobar for a long time. Then he lowered the blade to the stones.
“Go,” he said. “I will spare your life. Leave Vertigon before first light.”
Siv walked past the man on his knees without waiting for his reaction and entered his castle. The entrance hall loomed eerily, unfamiliar now that everything had changed. Decorations from the feast still adorned the walls, and foliage wilted in vases by the windows. The lighted space was at odds with the mist surrounding the castle, but it held no comfort. An unearthly keening came from somewhere deeper in the castle. The queen.
Shuffling footsteps sounded, and Zage Lorrid hurried into the entryway from the Great Hall. Pool raised his sword as if he wasn’t sure whether or not Zage was a threat. Dara tensed too, clutching her Savven blade.
Siv didn’t move. He recognized the stricken expression on Zage’s normally impassive face: grief. The man looked as distraught as Siv felt.
“My prince,” Zage said. “I am so sorry.”
“Where is my mother?” Siv said, fighting to keep his voice calm.
“A few of my trusted associates are escorting the queen to her royal chambers. I’ve asked them to administer a sleeping draught. Is that acceptable?”
“Yes,” Siv said. “Sora, Sel. Will you go to her?”
“What about you?” Sora asked.
“I have work to do,” he said. “Stay in Mother’s rooms tonight. I’ll join you whe
n I’m done.”
He hugged each of his sisters quickly, hardly able to look at their heartrending faces. They went with a pair of guards, who were personally dispatched by Pool. His side was still bleeding, and he looked ready to drop. There would be time enough for that later.
Siv turned back to Zage, who waited like a looming bat.
“Tell me.”
“Your father’s body has been moved to the dais in the Great Hall,” Zage said. The man’s dry, whispering voice was a comfort as the damp of the mist chilled Siv’s bones. “A spark of Fire was visible in each iris for a few moments after his death.” Zage took a shuddering breath, like a death rattle. “Cause of death was a concentrated dosage of Firetears.”
Dara shifted her feet on the tile floor.
“Firetears take effect within anywhere from one to four hours, depending upon the strength of the dosage,” Zage said. “Your father had several meetings this morning with assorted dignitaries, nobles, and Fireworkers. Any one of them could have been responsible for the poisoning, if it wasn’t one of the servants. Everyone who handled your father’s meals today has already been taken into custody.”
“Understood. We will make sure Vertigon is secure before beginning the investigation. Send me General Pavorran. Bandobar is gone. Pool now leads the Castle Guard.”
“Very well. And there’s the other matter—”
“I know.” Siv felt an iron band tightening around his chest. Vertigon’s kings were always crowned immediately in the presence of their deceased predecessor’s body. They could not leave the mountain without a ruler even for a day. As the next king, he would pledge himself to the service of Vertigon that very night. “We’ll uphold the tradition. Call for the required number of noble witnesses. No Rollendars, no Zurrens, and no one who met with my father today.”
“Sir.” Zage drew his cloak closer around him like a blanket, suffering still evident on his face. He had served the king for years. He loved him. Any suspicions Siv briefly held of Zage faded as the grief-stricken man swept away into the shadows.
Siv turned to Dara. “Wait for me?”
She inclined her head, eyes burning with sorrow. Siv wanted to hug her, to seek out her warmth, but he could not allow his own sorrow to reign. It was time to take up his crown.
Siv straightened his back and strode into the Great Hall.
30.
Castle Guard
DARA waited in the castle entryway as midnight neared. Beyond the double doors, the tables of the Great Hall were draped in black. On the dais where King Sevren had so recently offered his hand to his wife for a dance, his body lay, cold and lifeless.
Dara knew her father was responsible. She knew it as surely as her own name. Farr’s words on the boardwalk had been unmistakable. Farr, Lima, and Rafe had been working on something big at the Fire Guild for weeks. Dara had been too wrapped up in her own schemes to pay attention to what they were doing. And they had stopped asking her to be involved when word got out that she had protected the prince. They hinted more than once that something was going on, but she had assumed they were working against the Fire Warden, not that they themselves were the ones planning to take down the king.
That morning her father had said things would be different after today. He wasn’t talking about the Cup at all. It was Rafe Ruminor, not Zage Lorrid, who plotted treason. He was the one with the most to gain from the demise of the Amintelles and their long-held policy of restricting the Fire. He still resented the king for pardoning Zage Lorrid, for not bringing him to justice for Renna’s death. He must have decided that rather than killing Zage and having another Amintelle-appointed Warden take his place, he would change the whole balance of power in the kingdom. He had started with King Sevren and his children.
Dara thought back to that morning in the kitchen. Her father had carried an object in his pocket that glowed with concentrated Fire. She’d thought it was something innocuous, like a Firestick, and she’d worried about letting on that she could draw the Fire from it. But what if it wasn’t so harmless after all? Dara had seen a bottle of Firetears once. It had been as bright as the core of a Fire Lantern.
Whether her father had been the one to deliver the poison or not, there was no denying he was involved after what Farr had said. It made sense that he and Lima would be at the core of the plot. But part of his plan had gone awry. Dara had arrived in time to prevent the capture and murder of the king’s children. The Fireworkers’ efforts to remove the entire royal family in one day had failed. If the royal children had fallen, he might have made his next move. He might have shaken the very stones of the mountain with Fire and thunder.
Instead, Sivarrion Amintelle was being crowned king that very night.
Siv had asked Dara to wait for him. She couldn’t go home and face her father after what she had discovered. Everything would be different after this night. And so she waited. She sat cross-legged outside the Great Hall as servants, guards, and nobles darted back and forth, their voices echoing around the cavernous entry hall. Fear and frenzy reigned. Nothing like this had happened in a hundred years. Siv directed the chaos from the dais where his father’s body lay, taking charge of the castle and the crown. And Dara waited.
When the preparations were complete, a handful of nobles gathered to witness the coronation of their new ruler. The rite only required the presence of ten members of noble houses, and they arrived without ceremony. Lords Roven and Nanning. Lady Denmore. A few others. Vine Silltine was one of them, resplendent in black. Her aged father hobbled beside her. She acknowledged Dara waiting in the corridor with a nod, but she didn’t speak to her.
Dara stayed in the entrance hall until the ceremony was over. Vertigon tradition required that the new king be crowned immediately beside the body of the old. It was not their way to waste too much time with pomp and circumstance. The king was dead. Long live the king. Dara couldn’t help but think it a cruel tradition. She wondered what Siv was feeling as he stood before the body of the father he loved and accepted his crown.
When it was all over and the nobles had left, Pool came for her. His face was pale, and blood had crusted over the bandaged wound in his side. Dara had learned that several old Guardsmen were killed when the new recruits turned against them. Pool was luckier than some.
“He is ready for you, Miss Ruminor.”
“How is he?”
Pool shook his head sadly. “He is our king.”
Dara gripped the hilt of her Savven blade for strength and followed Pool into the Great Hall.
Siv sat on the steps of the dais with his back to his father’s body. He twirled the Amintelle crown between his long fingers, a ring of burnished gold set with Firejewels. The hall was still. Moonlight peeked through the tall windows. It was a clear night above the low veil of mist, unusual for this time of year.
“Your Majesty.” Dara bowed before the new king, turning her feet at right angles so it was more like a dueling salute than a curtsy. “I . . . I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I have something to ask you,” Siv said. His eyes were dry, his face the most serious Dara had ever seen it. It was heartbreaking.
“Anything, Your Majesty.”
“You saved me again today. Me and my sisters.”
“Your Majesty—”
“Please don’t call me that,” he said softly, sounding sad and restrained. “Siv is still fine, even though everything else has to be different.”
King Sevren’s body seemed to glow in the moonlight. It loomed behind the prince—the new king. Dara remembered how King Sevren had clapped an affectionate hand on his son’s shoulder at the Cup Feast, how Siv always spoke so warmly of his father. And now he was gone.
“What can I do?” she whispered.
“The Castle Guard is compromised. I don’t know how deep the treachery goes. I want you to be one of my guards, to help me protect my family and my . . . my kingdom.” Siv looked up and met her eyes steadily. Somehow, she knew this wasn’t what he had been plannin
g to ask her in those bright, happy moments before the final bout at the competition. It was hard to believe it was still the same day. “I need you, Dara. I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything else now.”
A terrible guilt cut into Dara at the sight of the naked grief in Siv’s eyes. Whatever she had hoped they would have together had been stolen from them along with his father. She wanted to tell him how she felt about him, how she would do anything to bring him the same joy he had given her over the past few months. But the guilt held her back. Her father had caused this. Her father had taken away the man Siv loved and admired more than anyone in the world. Sevren, The Good King. The good man.
But why? That was the real question. Was it pure vengeance for Renna’s death, or did he want to rule the mountain like the Firewielders of old? An image of her father striding through the castle, his eyes brimming with Fire and blood, flashed before her, filling her with dread. What would he do next?
“The job wouldn’t leave much time for sport dueling,” Siv said when she didn’t answer him. “I know how important that is to you, but I need someone I can trust at my side.”
Dara’s heartbeat caused her physical pain. Her father had taken the joy and humor from Siv’s eyes. She would do anything to keep anyone, even her father, from taking his life. She had been selfish for too long, wrapped up in her own desires and goals. She should have seen it coming, should have paid more attention. She would give up the world to atone for it now.
“I’ll do it.” Dara knelt on the cold floor and presented the hilt of the Savven blade. “I pledge my life to protect you and your family.”
Siv stared at her for a moment.
“Are you sure, Dara? You can say no. Dueling is your dream.”
“I’m sure. I will serve on your Guard.” She swallowed but kept her voice steady. “I swear to defend you against all threats. I will give my life to guard yours. You won’t do this alone.”