Amaskan's Blood

by Raven Oak

  She could almost wish for an attack, just for the distraction. She bit the inside of her cheek and sighed. No use temping the Gods. Forgive my impatience.

  If the Gods forgave her, they showed no sign. The sun continued to tempt her, her feet continued to ache, and her heart continued to pound with each approaching footstep across the soft, blue rug that ran the audience hall’s length.

  After a long litany of highborns, the presentations moved on to the members of the King’s own council. Adelei’s feet were falling asleep in shoes a pinch too small for her, and she shifted her weight back and forth.

  When that didn’t distract her, she gazed at the mural painted across the audience chamber’s back wall. King Boahim himself stood in a field of green where he planted the blue flag in the ground, its silver star held aloft by deer’s antlers as it looked to the heavens. It was difficult to believe the Little Dozen Kingdoms were once one land under one man. Adelei paused in her thoughts to acknowledge King Leon’s Grand Advisor as he touched her dirk and welcomed her.

  Beside King Boahim stood thirteen mystics: advisors and healers for his castle in the new city of Alesta. The entire history of this land began right here. I wonder if these are the original stones from long ago, or if war and rebuilding has changed them, too. As she studied the nobility as they came and went, she frowned. Any one of them could be behind the Tribor. And yet, her gut told her she already had her culprit.

  He had all but admitted it in the stables.

  When the last of the ennobled presented themselves, sweat decorated her brow. An irritating trickle ran between the inch-long hairs on her scalp. Her fingers twitched, but she resisted the urge to scratch her own head.

  Everyone knelt as King Leon left the audience chamber. Adelei followed behind Princess Margaret and Prince Gamun, the latter of which slowed his steps every so often to turn around. “Beautiful tapestry,” he mumbled, but he never once looked at it, nor the statue in the hall or the painting hanging in the stairwell.

  His eyes were always on her. Or so it felt.

  As hard as she tried to ignore him, her skin crawled as they walked. The royal family retired to private chambers for a brief break. The King had his meeting with the council after noon. Adelei had another “practice session” with Her Highness around the same time. She yawned as they climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. Once her sister was secured in her own rooms, Adelei strode straight into her bathing chamber.

  Hot water. And lots of soap. Water flowed from the wall into the small tub, and she dropped a bar of soap into the water.

  It wasn’t the sweat that bothered her as she stripped of the sepier outfit. Not at all. For the second time that day, Adelei scrubbed her skin pink in the stone bathtub.

  “Another report has come in from the Shadian border, Sire.” Leon’s Grand Marshal handed him the parchment. His eyes skimmed over the numbers, and he resisted the urge to crumple it up and toss it across the room.

  More small villages and farmers begging for his protection. More landowners pleading with him to annex them into his kingdom. Every time he opened his court to hear the complaints and concerns of his people, there was always someone else who pushed the boundaries. Or wanted him to push them in a literal sense.

  “What reasons do they give this time?” Leon asked as he rubbed his temples.

  “More of the same, mostly,” said Grand Marshal Levon Doublis. The man pointed a finger at one in particular. “This one here—it’s a Baron Akash near the Meridi Pass—he claims his cousins, the royal family of Shad, are employing evil men. He’s got quite a list of reasons he needs protection from us.”

  “Hmmm, that one may be worth investigating.”

  The Grand Marshal nodded. “Captain Warhammer passed our herald on the road. Said she was heading that way anyway and would look into it.’”

  Something about this news set Leon on edge, and he ground his teeth. “What else?”

  Lady Mara Britus cleared her throat, and Leon repressed a sigh. I must replace her. The old bat couldn’t give decent advice if someone gave it to her first. She still wore the necklace her husband had given her last year, just weeks before he died. Died and left her sitting on his council. Leon sighed as she cleared her throat again. The slightly chipped ruby hung on a dirty chain. Bits of yesterday’s dinner still stuck to its links.

  Gods, none of us are getting younger.

  The lady rubbed the thick ruby that hung between her breasts before she spoke. “There’s something else, Your Majesty, something none of them—” she said and gestured at the rest of the council, “—wished to tell you. Not before the wedding.”

  “What is it?”

  “A body has been found.”

  Leon stiffened in his chair. Five members of his advisory council sat around the old table, but two were missing. Princess Margaret held a reserved seat upon the council, though she rarely used it. But the last seat belonged to his sepier. Adelei now served as the royal family’s sepier, but when Leon glanced at the empty chair, he kept waiting for Ida to claim it.

  Ida. The woman he’d sent to the border. Please don’t let the body be hers.

  When he opened eyes, his physician studied him. Leon waved a hand in the man’s direction and asked, “Whose body?”

  “We’re not sure,” said Mara. “It was a child’s body.”

  “There’s a problem, Your Majesty,” the Grand Marshall added. “The child arrived with His Highness of Shad.”

  His fingers gripped the table’s edge, and the five faces before Leon swam. He released one hand long enough to ring a bell. “Go find Master Adelei. Have her brought here immediately,” he told the page.

  “Is that wise?” Lady Mara asked.

  “She’s sepier. I want her here for this.” When the woman scowled, Leon asked, “Do you have some reason for not wishing her present?”

  This time the lady remained silent. His Grand Advisor, Dumont, rubbed his hands along the carved table. “She believes your sepier may be responsible for the child’s death.”

  King Leon let loose a hearty laugh. Oh Gods, this will be an interesting day indeed. No one shared in his humor, and when he raised an eyebrow at Dumont, the man shrugged and stared at the table.

  “Think on it, Sire. Amaskans are known killers,” Lady Mara said.

  “So are Tribor.”

  The lady touched her hand to her forehead. I’ve done enough hiding this week. How can they advise me if I keep secrets?

  “There’s something you should know,” he said. Leon downed an entire cup of chilled wine without blinking. “The Tribor are in Alesta.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Margaret held the dagger like it might turn around and bite her, and Adelei bit back a laugh. “Again,” she said and watched Margaret tap the stuffed figure with the dagger’s tip. “Your Highness, I’ve seen you poke fruit with more force than that. If this figure is trying to kill you, and you can’t run, you’re going to have to do more than stick it.”

  The princess tried again, this time with force enough to dent the coarse muslin. Adelei seized Margaret’s elbow and thrust the blade forward until it sunk into the stuffed figure. “Like that, Your Highness.”

  “So hard? That feels unseemly.”

  “It is, Your Highness. You’re trying to possibly kill someone.”

  Margaret dropped the blade. “I’ll not kill. It’s against the Thirteen.”

  “If someone is trying to kill you, would you stand there and allow them to do so?”

  “No, I would scream.”

  Adelei sighed. “What good would screaming do?”

  “It would bring help.”

  Her sister’s lip trembled. Adelei handed her the blade once more. “If you’re somewhere alone, no one might come. By the time you’ve sat there and waited, you’d be long dead. Try again.”

  Round and round they went, Margaret putting up protest after protest as to why she couldn’t and wouldn’t stab the straw man, while Adelei ground her teeth a
nd tried yet again to describe the danger they were all in. Gods forbid I take her away from time with her precious betrothed. It’s enough to make me kill something.

  When the knock interrupted them, Adelei was grateful for the interruption. The page bowed to them both. “His Majesty requests Master Adelei’s presence in the council chambers. Immediately.”

  “Am I needed as well?” asked Margaret, and when the boy shook his head, the princess smirked.

  Adelei stopped her at the door. “Wait. You’ll need an escort.” When Margaret opened her mouth, Adelei continued. “Any time I’m not with you, you will be accompanied by Captain Fenton or several guards. We’ve already been over this, so no argument.”

  She summoned the guards just outside and as Margaret passed, the princess merely frowned. No ugly face? We’ve made progress then.

  While Adelei walked in the opposite direction of her sister, she couldn’t help but laugh at Margaret’s feeble attempts to stab the hay-stuffed figure. Gods help her if she’s ever attacked for real. She’ll probably try to offer them tea.

  By the time she reached the council chambers, her humor was gone. Six faces watched her, all grim and tired.

  The council chambers reminded her of her own room in that it held no windows and had only a single means of escape. The plain decor emphasized the importance of the room—nothing to detract from the people within it. Grand Advisor Dumont sat one end and her father at the other. Their grim faces gave her more answers than they knew.

  Something is wrong, or worse—someone is dead. King Leon gestured for her to take a seat in the chair squeezed back into the corner.

  “This afternoon, one of the guards found the body of a young girl in an alley in the lower circle—a child with red hair,” said King Leon. He coughed then, a spasming cough that shook his massive frame and stopped his speech momentarily. A quick swallow of liquid and he continued. “They brought her body here, and I believe her to be the child you and I saw yesterday.”

  The child from Prince Gamun’s court.

  “How was she killed?” Adelei asked.

  Dumont nudged King Leon’s glass, and he took another long sip, the thick liquid calming the spasm. “Her body was mutilated, Master Adelei. Someone beat her, and then carved across her skin until she died.” Dumont stared at the table as he spoke and avoided looking directly at her.

  Adelei glanced at her father. “I’m surprised you were able to recognize her if her body was cut up that much.”

  “That’s what you were hoping at least,” said an advisor to Adelei’s right. The advisor leaned across the table. “The marks on her—circles. Nothing but circles. Told you this was the work of an Amaskan.”

  The statement was so silly, Adelei laughed. She held her sides as she continued to laugh in their silence. “Lady Mara, is it?” she asked, and the woman nodded. “My lady, Amaskans don’t kill children.”

  As the words left her mouth, she paused. Or do they? After all, they were going to kill me. Her father nodded in her direction, as if reading her mind, but she waved it aside. “Besides, no Amaskans are here.”

  “You know this how?” An advisor, a Lord Jovoni if she recalled correctly, peered at her. The flush on his olive complexion tried to match the red hat on his head. “Are you yourself not Amaskan?”

  Adelei stared at her father, but he, too, avoided looking at her directly. She tucked away her irritation and faced Lord Jovoni. “My employer of the past was once the Order of Amaska, but no longer. That is a contract I’ve been cut from. This knowledge is to remain secret as many lives are at risk by your knowing.”

  “Master Adelei, our job is to advise the King, which we can’t do if he’s keeping information from us. His Majesty felt it necessary to speak on your… past as you put it. If not you, who else would defile this child so?”

  “I have no reason to kill a child, nor would any Amaskan. As for who—”

  King Leon shifted in his seat. “And yet they ordered the death of my daughter, Iliana, did they not?”

  The air left the room for a moment. Adelei inhaled deeply through her nose. “I can’t comment on that, having no knowledge as to the why, but I can assure you that I did not kill this child. Your Majesty knows this, just as you know very well who did kill this girl.”

  “I’ve explained to my advisors our concerns with Prince Gamun.” King Leon sighed long into his cup as he took another sip. “But Lady Mara feels there is more at work here, as do the others. I’ve done a great disservice to my kingdom by propagating the idea that the Amaskans are no better than Tribor. While I am not comfortable with the idea of assassins, Master Adelei has shown me that they are not all cut from the same cloth. But I cannot discount the possibility of another Amaskan.”

  “I promise you all that the Amaskans are not responsible for this. Had this child been the work of the Order, the Amaskan would have slit her throat cleanly or stabbed her in the heart, not played with her corpse like evil beings better left unnamed.” Adelei stood, leaning her frame slightly over the table. “Trust me, this prince is sneaky. He knows things he shouldn’t and plays with people. Toys with their heads, makes them confused. People like that are bad news.”

  King Leon asked, “Where were you last night?”

  Adelei flinched. He was having her followed. Worse, she hadn’t noticed. So caught up I’ve been in figuring out who I am that I was blind to something right in front of me. Dammit.

  “You could have left on horseback for all we know,” said Lady Mara. “Why are we wasting time waiting for excuses? Who else would have done this?”

  “My lady, my horse is dead from an assassin’s poison. And as for where I was, I was in the stables getting some air. Which is where Prince Gamun cornered and threatened me.”

  A cacophony of protests, laughter, and gasps covered up whatever King Leon said. Despite his skin still bearing the pallor of his coughing fit, King Leon stood and silence swept across the room.

  Adelei shook her head. “How do you stand this woman? How in all Thirteen Hells did she gain a seat on your council of advisors?”

  The lady gasped, but King Leon shot her a warning glare. “Purely accidental, I assure you. Her husband recently died, and she holds his seat in proxy until I replace her.” Any protest on the Lady Mara’s lips died with King Leon’s reminder.

  “And you’ve taken this long to do so because. . .?” Adelei asked.

  He smiled, but the emotion didn’t reach his eyes as he waved a hand at her. “Enough. Tell me what happened between you and the prince.”

  Prince Gamun Bajit was not the first sexual deviant or psychopath to cross her path, but the things he said—close enough to truth to set her insides aflutter. She told the council what had transpired, editing out his knowledge of her birth name. After she finished, King Leon remained quiet for a time. “So he tried to bribe you and when that failed, he took it out on the girl?” he asked.

  “I would assume so, Your Majesty.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me immediately with this information?”

  “I honestly didn’t think he would go after her. With me here, I thought she’d be safe, at least for the evening. I certainly didn’t think he’d be so obvious about it, and I’d hoped I’d shifted his focus to me.”

  “The man knows who you are and all but threatened to turn you in to the Boahim Senate. Or sell you off to the highest bidder. Or take you as his bride, or slave, I’m not sure. I don’t think he fears you at all.”

  The words stung.

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I’ve failed to protect this victim and gain the information you asked of me, though I’ll certainly continue to try. But I will remind you that my primary job has been and will continue to be the protection of Her Highness, Princess Margaret. I can’t be at her side at all times if I’m sent on other tasks.”

  He took the truth as well as she did, which was to say with a wince and a frown. “I’d hoped we’d find a way to stop the wedding, but you are correct to remind me
of your duty. Are you sure it was him?”

  “I’m not, but so far as we know, this prince has done a very good job of cleaning up any 'messes’ that may remain behind. It does seem too obvious—too easy. It bears investigating further,” said Adelei. “I’m worried at how he’s gained the information he has.”

  King Leon nodded. To his council, he said, “Leave us. I would speak with my sepier alone.”

  No one protested, though Lady Mara still scowled at Adelei as she left. Once the door shut behind them, Adelei asked, “Did you really think me capable of killing that girl?”

  “No, but my council did. I needed them to hear from you, to understand you weren’t the culprit. However, the idea that another Amaskan could have done it—that is possible. It’s not something I’ve ruled out.”

  Already it felt like an old argument between them, and despite Adelei’s confidence that an Amaskan wouldn’t kill the little girl, her brain reminded her of her own kidnapping. I can’t trust anyone.

  Her father whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, but it didn’t change anything. They were empty words. An idea struck her, and she asked, “Who knows my identity?”

  “Us. Margaret… and Ida.”

  “Ida. Who betrayed us both before.” Adelei grimaced. “I hate to think it, but someone has told this prince very specific information that is not public knowledge.”

  “There’s no way Ida would betray me again.”

  Adelei reached over to touch his hand. “I—I know you two have a history, but Prince Gamun knew things that Margaret doesn’t. Either you told him, or she did. I’m sorry.”

  “She can’t have done it. Someone else must know.” His frown dragged his brows down with it. “I sent Ida out on a small task before Prince Gamun arrived. When would he have encountered her?”

  Goosebumps ran across Adelei’s arms. They both inhaled sharply in unison. “Where did you send her?” Adelei asked.