Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7)

by Robert J. Crane

  Cyrus kept a slow stride, afraid that any sudden movement might spook his quarry before he could even be sure that this was Danay. If everyone else is in the palace, why would he be outside? Out of his security precautions? Away from his guard?

  The answer occurred to him just as quickly: Because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, better than everyone else, and beyond the reach of actual harm.

  “It is a paranoid fear,” the servant went on. “We have eradicated the dangers that plagued the early elves. Wolves, bears … the predators that torment our brethren south of the Heia mountains. Even the trolls are at bay now, fearful of our might.” The servant smirked into the dark. “Our enemies are all but defeated. There is nothing left to fear.”

  Cyrus’s eyes narrowed as the elf spoke. That arrogance … the trolls are at bay because Sanctuary invaded their city and stripped them of their slaves and their dignity.

  “Nothing to fear here, at least,” the servant went on, running fingers through the fountain gently, the dark waters stirring at his touch.

  “That’s not why I would seek company,” Cyrus said, taking the long walk around the square of the garden, approaching from the side of the fountain, underneath an ivy-covered stone archway. “Though it is a good point. Most of our fears are mere specters, vanishing in daylight, especially here in the Kingdom.”

  The servant’s smile could be heard in his voice even though Cyrus could not see his face. “Who are you? And why do you wander the gardens?”

  “My master came for a meeting with the king,” Cyrus said, pretending to clear his throat. It sounded like a skidding boot on stone but wet. “I was denied entry to the palace, and he asked me to wait for him. He said it would be some time.”

  “You seek company to while away the hours,” the servant said, nodding as Cyrus came back out from underneath the arch. “This I understand, for the hours are dull, especially now, when one has not enough thoughts to fill them.”

  “Too many thoughts, I find,” Cyrus said. “Often unproductive ones that chase each other ’round and ’round the head, like hares during a hunt, moving too swiftly for you to settle your bow on one target.”

  Cyrus could see the steward’s forehead in the moonlight now, hair draped back. The cut of his clothing suggested he was a man of some importance, not the lowliest of servants. It doesn’t look like what he wore when last I saw him dressed in this manner, but he sounds … that’s no guarantee, is it? Every servant in the palace probably wishes he spoke like the king, and any one of them would probably adopt his mannerisms as much as possible out of sheer flattery and hope for advancement.

  “That is not as common a problem,” the servant said with a thin smile. “At least not in my experience. An excess of thoughts is not the thing that plagues most. Indeed, I find the opposite to be true; there is too little thought among the masses.”

  Snooty bastard, Cyrus thought. “True,” though, was what he said. “Why do you seek solitude?”

  “I find myself burdened by the same problem as you,” the servant said with a salutatory nod. Cyrus could see his nose now. It was plain; nondescript, even, though his eyebrows were heavy and stood out. “My mind also races like horses chasing after one another.”

  “There is certainly much to worry about,” Cyrus agreed, circling around the fountain opposite the servant, taking his time, not daring to approach, not yet. “These are troubled and troubling times.” He smiled lightly. “There is a little left to fear.”

  “What does your master worry about?” the servant asked, watching him with a close eye.

  “I’m not certain I could say,” Cyrus said, giving the most wistful smile he could manage, and hoping it showed through the illusion.

  “Are his worries your own?” The servant asked, now turning slightly away, as if paying attention to something else.

  “Some,” Cyrus agreed, pausing opposite the servant at the fountain, the spray of water tinkling between them. “Some are my own.”

  “Ah, a man who lives his own life in addition to doing his service,” the servant said with a slow nod. “Here in the court we don’t have many of those. Bred out of them, I assume. You see it in the highborns, of course, but to those in the low service …” He shook his head. “There seems to be only the work.”

  “Perhaps it is different out in the country,” Cyrus said.

  “Perhaps indeed,” the servant said, nodding. “From where do you hail?”

  “Outside Javeritem,” Cyrus answered after a moment’s pause in which he puzzled over the best option. If he lied, and the servant was a mere servant who walked away afterward and inquired about him, the consequences might fall upon Yemer. He settled instead on the truth, filtered through the lie that had gotten him this far.

  The servant stirred at this, straightening. “Does that mean that Morianza Yemer has come to court?”

  “He has,” Cyrus said, starting a slow walk around the fountain, intending to thread his way just a little closer for a better look at the man, whose face he still couldn’t see terribly well.

  “Interesting,” the servant said, staring into the distance, seemingly lost in his own thoughts for a space. He blinked as Cyrus slowly inspected the row of plants that ran in a straight line behind the fountain. They appeared to be of the flowering sort, but there was not a bloom to be found among them, the stems trimmed and pruned. “And what has he come to say, returning after his long absence?”

  “I don’t entirely know,” Cyrus said, quite honestly. He peered at the servant, catching a closer glimpse of the man’s face. Yes, it was plain, so plain that he was having trouble determining for certain …

  “A strange message for him to travel from Javeritem to convey,” the servant said with a smirk. “Is it that he comes merely to show his support, fly his banner … or is it that he views you as low enough that he has not deigned to share his feelings with you?”

  “It could easily be either,” Cyrus said, trying a knowing smile as he stepped closer to the edge of the fountain, leaving the pruned plants behind. The servant was only fifteen feet away now, standing with the fountain between the two of them. “You know how that is, I expect.”

  There was a flash of deep amusement in the man’s eyes. “Only too well.”

  I am almost certain that is Danay in servant’s guise, Cyrus thought, keeping his smile carefully in place lest it fade. He took a slow breath and placed his hands carefully on the fountain’s edge, leaning forward to look into the waters, the tinkling of the spray like gentle chimes in the still night. “What thoughts race in your mind, my new friend?” Cyrus asked, looking at the man’s reflection in the rippling waters.

  If it is him … do I do this?

  Do I stab him through the heart?

  Murder him here in his own garden?

  Cyrus’s breath came out ragged, and he raised his gaze to the servant, who seemed to contemplate his answer before responding. “There is much on my mind,” the man admitted. “Some of it I would not feel comfortable discussing with anyone, but there is one thing that should be obvious, for it is on the mind of all elves at the moment.”

  “The war,” Cyrus said.

  The servant smiled, and it was at that moment that Cyrus realized he was unmistakably Danay. “The war,” he agreed.

  “Do we ponder it so heavily because it is so far above our control?” Cyrus asked, drawing a smile from the man. “Or does it ring around our heads because we fear we might have some hand in it? That we might be sent to it?”

  “That latter might be a fear I don’t share,” Danay said, almost smirking. “I believe I’m beyond going to war myself at this point. Privilege of age, I suppose. But you’re young; of course it would be upon your mind. And your other insight … men have always feared that which they cannot control, that which they cannot comprehend. War, especially these last years, seems an unstoppable sort of monster, marching across Arkaria and consuming all in its path. It inflames the fears, even though our own danger i
s low …”

  “I doubt many in Termina would see it your way,” Cyrus said dryly.

  Danay’s face rippled with subtle annoyance. “An aberration. They are comparatively few.”

  “I heard the titans were marching up, trying to enter the Heia pass last year,” Cyrus went on. “That would seem to be a cause for concern.”

  “The titans are no more a worry now than an invasion of gnomes,” Danay said, almost contemptuously. “These humans in Emerald Fields, though … with their dark elven allies, and heretics behind them, nested here in our lands … they need to be crushed. They are cause for concern.” He smiled darkly. “But not for long.”

  “So it’s to be that way, then,” Cyrus said sadly, nodding as he drifted around the corner of the fountain. He tried to make it as casual as he could. When Danay looked up at him, Cyrus spoke again. “I suppose you know, being this close to the center of the Kingdom. Out there,” he swept a hand to encompass the far reaches, “we don’t know, not really. When the word came through of what happened today, we speculated that perhaps it was—an aberration, as you called Termina.” Cyrus smiled thinly.

  “They will be a memory soon,” Danay said, giving a thin smile of his own. “This is a certainty you can take home, from the center of the Kingdom to your little corner. Spread the word, and when it comes true in the days that follow, you’ll look like a prophet.” His face darkened. “For I know this—they have gone too far, these rebels, these heretics, these invaders. They have repaid the kindness of a home with insult and intransigence.”

  “But they produce so many crops,” Cyrus said, feigning surprise. “They pay … quite the considerable amount of gold to the King, as I have heard it …” He crept just slightly closer, almost breathless, not daring to take one in for fear it might reveal him. He was less than ten feet away now. Longwell did this once, as I watched. He did it to his own father, to save a land. I do it, too, to save the Luukessians, to save Sanctuary, to aid the dark elves … for this man speaks of us as beneath his contempt, animals to be slaughtered for crossing in front of him in the street.

  “Gold is little consolation for insult,” Danay said, his eyes flashing with anger. “We will take all they have and make it our own, and they will be driven from our lands and into the arms of their so-called allies. Let them all band together if they wish, on their own grounds, naked and stripped of all our generosity.” He smiled, malicious and dark. “Others align with us on this. Emerald Fields is a haven for heresy, for traitors, for dark elves. They have many enemies, enemies who spread across the entirety of Arkaria, who refuse to stand idly by while this scum reaches out its hand and takes—”

  “‘Enemies everywhere,’” Cyrus mused, only five feet away. He was just drifting now, stepping into conversational range, like a person who simply wanted to talk. “Yes. Yes … of course they do. How could they not have enemies everywhere?”

  “Truly,” Danay went on, nodding. “Those who oppose them are our natural allies, and these … rebels … are our enemies. I should have seen it before, but it took them allying with the dark elves to truly reveal them for what they are. The sheer number of those lining up against them now, though … this little war we’ve begun will see them crushed, mark my words. The wheels are already in motion. I hear.” Danay added the last part hastily, as if to cover himself. “Allies will come, soon, to aid us. They will march down and help us wrest what is rightfully to be ours from the grasp of those intruders.” He smiled. “If any are left to run, I expect I know where they’ll go … and our forces will be right behind them.” He looked right into Cyrus’s eyes, now not two feet away. “No mercy. Sleep soundly in your bed knowing that on the day after tomorrow, we will take the fight to th—”

  Cyrus did not wait any longer, withdrawing his blade from its scabbard with a hollow rattle, seizing hold of Danay’s tunic and plunging the weapon into the king’s chest on the left side. It drew a gasp of surprise, and Cyrus threw the king off the tip, then stabbed again, this time on the right. This drew another gasp, and then a rattling breath. This is not what Alaric would do, Cyrus thought, an acid thought at an acid moment, threatening to consume what little was left of his self-respect.

  But Alaric isn’t here.

  “You were right,” Cyrus said ruefully, quietly, as the king fell to his knees. “There are enemies everywhere, Danay.”

  “H-h …” A wet, wheezing gasp emerged from the King’s lips. “H-ho-w? Di-d? You …?” He did not manage to get the last word out.

  “How did I know?” Cyrus asked, and the king nodded once. “We’ve met before, with you in this guise.” The king was slumped on his haunches, fighting for breath as his silken doublet glistened dark in the moonlight, wet with his blood. Cyrus made no attempt to disguise his voice now, and with a breath, dispelled the illusion before him.

  Danay’s face fell in an instant. “Im … poss …”

  “I’m afraid not,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “Unlikely, perhaps … and yet here we are.”

  “You … won’t … s … ave …” Danay started, spitting up red that slipped down his chin as he spoke, the color leeched by the white moonlight. “You … can’t …” He sank to his back, his strength fading.

  “Perhaps I won’t be able to stop you, your plans, in time,” Cyrus said, kneeling down before the King of the Elves. “You certainly did hate us, hate Sanctuary, hate Emerald Fields. Enough that I would have known it was you with my eyes closed by the time we reached the end of our conversation.” Cyrus smiled, but his expression was sad. “I think, though, without you at their head, whoever ends up in charge here might just see things differently.” He brandished his blade in front of him, and pressed it against the king’s throat, eating into the skin as the eyes of Danay the First widened for the last time. “And even if they don’t … at least we’ll be rid of you.”

  48.

  Cyrus was sitting on the couch in the Tower of the Guildmaster when Vara returned. He had scrubbed his skin raw and cleansed his sword of its bloody stain, and was waiting, his hair dripping onto the soft cotton shirt he was wearing, his armor already placed back upon its dummy. The torches burned around him as he stared at the stone floor, the last look on Danay’s face still flashing before his eyes, that shocked betrayal at a casual conversation so quickly turned to his own death. It was a look Cyrus had seen many a time in battle, where men knew that death was a possibility, yet still it came as a shock.

  Cyrus stared at his red arms, exposed, the hair rippling up and down them. He had turned the water in his shower as hot as it could go, and it had felt as though it had been heated by the breath of a dragon or a particularly strong fire spell—like the sort that he had used to incinerate Danay’s body after decapitating the king and leaving his head on the edge of the fountain to be found. He had done it to guarantee that there would be no chance of resurrection. He could still feel a phantom sense of blood on his hands, even though they had been covered by his gauntlets the entire time.

  “I have been assured of Lady Voryn’s support,” Vara said, striding up the steps into the Tower. “So that is done.” She flashed a smile at him, triumphant but weary. “How did your meeting with Yemer go?”

  “He informed me that Danay had surely heard we were instigating rebellion against him,” Cyrus said, watching Vara’s muted enthusiasm fade, the corners of her mouth pulled down by the revelation. “I also learned that Danay was planning to bring in Goliath and Amarath’s Raiders as well as, presumably, the humans in a bid to crush Emerald Fields, to remove them utterly from our side of the board.”

  “Goddess,” Vara breathed, letting the gauntlet she’d been pulling off clatter to the ground with a hard rattle. “We must warn them.”

  “I’ve sent warning to Emerald Fields,” Cyrus said, nodding. “It was the first thing I did when I got back, but … I doubt Danay’s attack against them will go off as planned.”

  “I see no reason why it wouldn’t,” Vara said, sounding suddenly urgent. “I
f he’s aware that we’re plotting against him, his reaction will be swift, and our plan is almost assuredly at an end.” She ran a hand over her smooth, pulled-back hair. “What now?” she breathed, almost to herself.

  “In a day or two, when the convocation is called,” Cyrus said, in a low, unworried, nearly dead voice, “you’ll go and do what we’ve been planning to do all along.”

  Vara almost seemed to miss his statement. “My dear, there will be no convocation. If Danay is forewarned, then we will not be able to kill the king.” She let out a low breath. “All our planning, all this deal-making … all for naught.”

  “I think all of it will come in handy during the convocation,” Cyrus said quietly, still staring at the stone floor. Wide eyes flashed before his own, and he shuddered at the thought of the blood running down the doublet of the king of the elves.

  Now she stared at him. “Why do you expect they would call a convocation when the King is not dead?”

  He looked up at her, and he spoke in a hoarse rasp, the same voice he’d used to talk to Danay before he’d killed him. “Because the King is dead.”

  Her face twisted. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I killed the King,” Cyrus said, lifting his hands. “Only an hour ago. Stabbed him through the chest, once in each lung, cut off his head and left it for them to find, burned his body—”

  “How?” Vara asked, inching closer to him, caught somewhere between fascination and horror. “How did you do this?”

  “Yemer got me into the palace grounds,” Cyrus said, looking up at his wife, his own emotions flitting somewhere between a desperate sort of pride and hope for approval and sick disgust at what he’d done. “They wouldn’t let me into the palace itself, though, so … I went for a walk in the gardens … and ran into a steward of our mutual acquaintance.”