by Ellyn, Court
“Where’s your mum?”
“Rhyv … in Leania.” Shortly after his coronation, he had sent his mother back to her ancestral home. She must be worried sick about him. She always had, worrying to the point of tedium, fearing assassins in every shadow, disasters in every staircase, illness in every sniffle. Finding he needed her care at last might bring her some satisfaction.
“Leania is a long way,” Megga said. “I can see the fever in you. You might not make it to the border in time.”
“Where exactly are we?” The portal had delivered him to the middle of nowhere. He’d hobbled blindly for days.
Megga sat back on her heels and scrubbed salve from her fingers with a towel. “My da always said we’re exactly between Bramoran, Lunélion, and Tírandon. We supplied onions to all three cities, and one is as close as the other.”
Lasharia had warned Valryk to avoid Tírandon. It was likely wise to trust her on that score. And yet he often dreamed of showing his people what the ogres had done to him, of the abuses Lothiar had heaped upon him, just as he showed this nobody of a girl. He imagined seeing Kelyn’s anger wither. But he feared the War Commander and the rest of the highborns would only gloat instead. Maybe even toss him into another cell.
But not his mother. She would never treat him so cruelly. If he could reach Rhyverdane, she would tend to him with her own hands, maybe bring him a proper surgeon.
The idea of such a long journey filled him with dread. His head spun. His arms shook. Aye, admit it, you’re not going anywhere for a long time. But his feet didn’t have time. Before long, the poison would seep into his blood, if it hadn’t already.
“Can you … can you do it?” he asked.
Fear filled Megga’s face. She shook her head, but considered half a moment longer and nodded. “The sooner the better. I’ll get some things. Don’t look at what I bring.”
~~~~
16
The sun was sinking into the Great Fire Sea as Thorn, Carah, and Alyster rode into Windhaven. The tide rolled gold and indigo against the piers, and shullas wheeled, screaming. Sprawling villas on boastful hills blushed orange-red. To the south, the naked backs of the Silver Mountains basked in the dwindling caresses of daylight, and to the north, across the silt-yellow current of the Liran River, the palace perched atop lofty cliffs like a shrine. Its windows caught the light of the setting sun like the facets of a jewel. The fires in the Beacon Tower blazed in warning to passing ships. Compared to Tírandon, which conveyed the brute force of a gauntleted fist, the ducal palace was as elegant as a dancer.
“Up there?” asked Alyster, eyes round with awe. “That is where we’re going?”
They had reached the bridge that spanned the Liran, but Thorn rode past it. “Not yet. I don’t like this one bit. We need to feel things out first. Best done at a tavern.”
Alyster agreed, all too eager.
Put off the inevitable? Carah wanted to argue, but the two of them were leaving her behind. Maybe they merely wanted to take the edge off the aches induced by five days in the saddle. But was not wine at Kethlyn’s table preferable to beer in a crowded tavern? The events atop Windgate Pass had taken the gusto out of them. Accommodations at Vonmora had provided welcome rest. Silk sheets, manufactured on Vonmora’s own looms, never felt so fine as after several nights of sleeping on the ground.
The castellan was grateful to learn the truth about the death of Lord Davhin and pleased to hear that his heir, young Maeret, had escaped the slaughter in the Black Falcon’s halls.
Carah had craved details about Kethlyn. The castellan passed on rumors of riots in Windhaven and reports of the measures Kethlyn had taken to protect his borders.
“Protect?” Thorn had scoffed. “Southern Evaronna is lost to the enemy. Lord Helwende says the militia my nephew stationed along the Avidan has fled.”
It was all news to the castellan.
Anxious, sore, and dusty, Carah followed Thorn and Alyster through the city gate. Cages swayed below the battlements. Inside, disintegrating flesh drew flies and gulls. Signs read, “Raper. Rioter. Damned.”
The pace of the people crowding the streets was one of urgency. Soldiers in dark red surcoats harried them, shouting, “Observe the curfew!” Doors slammed as dusk descended. Youths lingered defiantly on a corner and made rude gestures at the soldiers, until prodded homeward by wickedly spiked halberds.
There was a tautness in the air, as if the quiet were made of faulty glass. Thump in the right place and it would shatter.
Carah could hardly believe it. The riots weren’t rumor after all.
Fortunately, several taverns and inns clustered near the gate. Uncle Thorn chose one called The Resting Arrow. It didn’t appear to be the most exclusive, but it seemed tidy and clean from the outside. Better, the common room was boisterous with shouts and music.
“Tell no one who we are,” Thorn said, tethering his horse to the hitching post. “I’d prefer to take a bath and drink my ale in peace—without Kethlyn’s guard coming to drag us off to some infernal dungeon.”
Having seen the bodies of the condemned and the scurry of people to beat the night home, Carah decided her uncle’s statement was not as preposterous as it sounded. “You really think he would do that?”
“Let’s think of him as an enemy until we learn he isn’t. Agreed?”
Another facet she hadn’t considered. What did she imagine she would do if she had come all this way alone, only to find herself at the mercy of an enemy? Incinerating ogres was easy. Could she do the same to her brother? Please, Ana, don’t let it come to that.
Thorn stuffed his robe inside his saddlebag, leaving one sleeve dangling free to cover the crystal orb of the staff. He still looked noticeably foreign in his Elaran suedes and green-striped arms. Carah realized she must as well. As she pressed into the common room, her sunburned arms became naked under the glances of strangers.
Thorn’s coin purchased them a round of ale and fish stew. Seated at a small round table near a cold fireplace, he busied himself listening to the unspoken thoughts of the patrons churning past. Carah mimicked him for a time, picking up fragments of petty detritus: a woman’s jealousy over the gown of her husband’s friend’s wife; lustful delight over the barmaid’s bosom, followed by a swift grope; disgruntlement over the price of bread and the lack of butter.
Nothing pertaining to her brother or riots or ogres. If anything, the patrons were determined not to think about the recent upheaval.
Across the table, Alyster huffed, impatient. Veil Sight might have come to him instinctually, but he heard only spoken words, and they were a muddled, useless current. He heaved himself up from the table and shouldered his way to the bar. The sneers he earned from guests in fine linen angered Carah, but Alyster paid them no mind. He chatted with the man behind the bar who turned his ear as if finding Alyster’s accent hard to understand.
The man on Alyster’s right joined the conversation. He was big with big gestures and a big voice. “… weren’t for that traitor!” was all Carah heard.
The man on Alyster’s left took issue and shouted back.
The bigger man threw the first punch. Alyster danced back to avoid the crossfire. Mugs overturned. Glass shattered. The barkeep began slapping the brawling patrons with a white towel. Women screamed and scrambled from their chairs.
Uncle Thorn lowered his face into his hand with a groan.
Carah swept her mug off the table just as a backpedaling arse collided with it and set it rocking.
Slinking back, Alyster plunked himself down opposite her. He winced at the sound of a fist connecting.
“What did you say?” Carah asked.
“Nothing! I asked why the curfew. That’s all, I swear. That big lad started cursing the duke for a’ the city’s ills, then that wee one defended the duke, saying how he pardoned all the rioters and took the blame on hisself. Then the big one says, ‘He hanged my brother,’ and the wee one says, ‘Rapers deserve what they get,’ and that done it.”
Beyond the windows a whistle blew. Two soldiers burst into the common room. They dragged the brawlers apart and hauled them out into the street. Slowly, order returned to the Resting Arrow.
Carah laid a hand to Thorn’s wrist. “The people are divided. Please, I must speak with him. Now. I don’t care about the curfew. It won’t wait until morning.”
Thorn nodded. They headed out into the night. The streets were nearly deserted. Soldiers patrolled, eyeing anyone loitering under signs and lampposts and waving them indoors.
Thorn whispered, “Thevril,” and the guards glared elsewhere. He donned his robe again. Best to look the part in case intimidation was required.
Carah took the hint and fished hers from her pack. She had folded it with utmost care, but after five days the silver velvet needed a stern fluffing. She even peeled off her riding boots and stepped into delicate silver slippers, then unbraided her hair and whisked a comb through it.
Alyster shook his head at all this tedious preparation. Carah supposed he preferred to charge in, hatchets bared, and get this business over with.
“We are calling upon a duke, you realize,” she said. “Or someone who is calling himself a duke. It’s almost like visiting the king. But it’s more than that. I’m here to stitch my family back together. Presentation matters.”
“If you say so.” Alyster glanced up at the palace. It perched like a pearl with each window lighted, the Beacon Tower beaming steadily seaward. He gulped. “I’ll stay here.”
“What? No!” Carah hooked her arm in his. “If Kethlyn is a belligerent ass, I’ll need you to protect me.”
“Hnh, sure you will. Just … don’t … don’t tell him who I am. Awkward, and all that.”
Carah mustered an argument—
“He’s right,” Thorn insisted. “Until we know Kethlyn’s frame of mind, he doesn’t need to know he has an older brother. Could put Alyster in danger.”
That was something even Alyster hadn’t considered. He swore under his breath. “I’m not dying for this.”
They rode past the rotting criminals, back to the bridge. The central leaf was raised, though no boats passed along the river. Lanterns lined the cliffside road on the far bank, and the lanterns moved. Sentries. A dozen at least. Soldiers guarded this end too. The riots must have frightened Kethlyn badly.
The riders approached the bridge with clear intent. Frenetic moths orbited flickering lamps. Beneath them, the soldiers came to attention. “Move along!” one bellowed. “His Grace is not receiving visitors. Besides, you’re breaking curfew. I ought to have you lot arrested.”
Thorn’s grin exuded charm. “You know who I am?”
The soldiers exchanged glances. Maybe it was the deepening dark that prevented them from recognizing the tall black horse and blue robe. Maybe they simply didn’t want to believe the stories.
“I’m His Grace’s uncle. His sister accompanies me.”
Bravado withered fast. “Th-Thorn Kingshield?”
“That’s right.” How calm his voice remained, even as he pushed his weight around. “I’ve come on behalf of his mother, the Duchess of Liraness, and his father, the War Commander. I bring tidings.”
One guard started for the winch-house. The other nudged him with the butt of a pike, halting him. “We’ve had hordes of liars trying to get across, even assassins. Why should we believe you?”
A small tongue of blue flame ignited over Thorn’s palm. “If you don’t lower the bridge and allow us to cross in civilized fashion, I will boil the river to steam and cross that way.”
Whether he was bluffing or not, the bridge lowered quickly. The steel teeth clanged together.
Halfway across the bridge, when they were out of sight of the guards on both ends, Thorn enveloped them inside the veil again. They passed the patrolling sentries unseen. The clopping of horse hooves turned their heads, and Forath’s red glow painted shadows long across the gravel, but what could the sentries do?
The cliffside road terminated at the palace gate. The veil unraveled.
Atop the gatehouse, there was a clamor of feet on stone, startled shouts, the stretching of bowstrings. Moonlight winked sanguine on the points of arrows. A command tumbled down: “Halt! Turn around and go back. Only one warning.”
Too late to go back. The sentries patrolling the road ran up behind them, angry that they’d been tricked.
Carah turned to her uncle. “Tell them!”
He shrugged. “It’s your party, love. Don’t get me skewered.” He made a show of examining his nails in the moonlight.
Alyster nudged her. “Say something!”
“Captain Drael?” she called. “Is that you?”
Silence.
“Captain, it’s Lady Carah. We’ve come all the way from Tírandon. I would speak with you about my brother.”
Silence.
Any moment, the arrows might fall. “I do not believe we are enemies. Please—”
A narrow door, set amid the thick banded planks of the gate, cracked open. Captain Drael slipped out. He carried a lantern. The flickering light splayed across the silver arrow upon his rumpled surcoat. He exhibited great faith, or great desperation, in exposing himself.
His fist struck his chest in a weary salute. “M’ lady, forgive me. I did not recognize you. And if my eyes do not deceive me, Thorn Kingshield. It has been a long time.”
“Twenty years,” Thorn said.
“And this?” A jut of Drael’s chin indicated Alyster.
Thorn waved dismissively. “My apprentice.”
Carah dismounted, reached for Drael’s hand and squeezed it tenderly. Everything about him wilted at her touch. His strong shoulders rounded, his stern face grew slack with sorrow, and in an instant he became old. “I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time, m’ lady. I cannot let you in. The threat of assassins, you see…”
“We have no intention of harming my brother,” she cried, affronted. “I’ve come to reclaim him.”
“It’s too late for that. Isn’t it?”
“I can’t know unless I try.”
“You must understand. He’s locked himself away. He sees no one.”
Carah raised her chin. “We’re not leaving.”
Drael’s helplessness was that of a drowning man. He stopped fighting and stood aside for them, willing to let the current have its way.
~~~~
Arms pried Kethlyn off the rug. For a moment, he rose weightless, yet as heavy as a ship’s anchor. The cool leather of an armchair embraced him.
“Your Grace?” He heard the tapping of fingers against his cheek, but his cheek was too numb to feel more than a dull thud. The darkness receded, laborious, like trying to swim through mud. His chamberlain leaned over him, wizened face creased with concern. “Drink this.” Farns spooned white powder into Kethlyn’s mouth, then pressed a glass of water to his lips. The bitterness of silverthorn flooded his throat and gagged him. He was already free from pain, so why torture him with medicine?
“Is it morning?” he slurred. Couldn’t be. His tongue was still too numb for morning to have arrived. He must’ve passed out only a short while ago. He flailed his arms, dispersing the chamberlain like foul air. “Leave me be, curse you. What the fuck do you want?”
“Your Grace, someone has come.”
Drunk as he was, an alarm bell managed to sound in his head. He glanced toward the windows. They were still shut. But assassins might use doors, even chimneys. Why not chimneys?
Turning so fast to investigate made the room somersault; his stomach revolted. He bolted for the basin and vomited the silverthorn powder and half a bottle of sintha. Groaning and cursing, he slid to the floor. His head pounded like a war drum.
Whispers slithered toward him. “What’s he doing in this room?” A woman’s voice. For a heart-stopping instant he feared his mother stood on the threshold, but this woman had long dark curling hair.
“After the attack,” Farns said, “he refused to stay in his old rooms.”
> Kethlyn still couldn’t bring himself to take over his mother’s suite at the end of the corridor, even though most of his belongings had been moved there, so he had chosen a guest room at random, the better to foil assassins. Unless his servants showed them to the right door. Like Briga. Treacherous. Pathetic. Sobbing assassin. She could cry all she liked in her cell.
Farns was the only person Kethlyn trusted to bring him food and drink, fresh linens and clean clothes. But even that slim fragment of trust had been misplaced, it seemed.
“Damn you, Farns,” he muttered, staggering to his feet. “Go hang yourself.”
The woman lingering in the doorway turned. Her eyes were large, tragic. So very blue and painfully familiar.
A strange mix of astonishment, humiliation, gratitude bombarded Kethlyn, rocking him back on his heels. He collapsed into the armchair. “You’re really here? Is Mum? Da?”
Carah replied with a shake of the head. No, too much to hope that they had come to pull him out of the dark. But why send Carah alone? How regal she looked, how grown up, standing erect in a resplendent silver robe. An avedra’s robe.
That’s when Kethlyn recognized his uncle standing in the shadow beside the door. Thorn glared with open hostility, as if he longed to tear out Kethlyn’s throat with his teeth. Four years he had been missing. Where had he gone? Even Carah’s precious birthdays hadn’t been enough to drag him home. It must be dire business, indeed, that brought him to Windhaven, now of all times.
How would it come? Fire? A lightning bolt?
“I knew another assassin would show up, but I didn’t expect it to be you.” Kethlyn raised his left hand to show them the thick linen swaddling. His physicians offered no promises that his fingers would regain their former strength. Why had he bothered protecting himself? Why had he not let the dagger fall and be done with it?
He laid his head back against the armchair and laughed with bitter relief. Almost over. Oblivion. A lash of fear. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe his guilt would go into the Light with him. Please, Goddess, no. Grant me rest.