The Empire's Ghost

by Isabelle Steiger

“To arrange a marriage,” Kel said. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “You think you’re equipped to go to a foreign land and convince its rulers to entertain a betrothal with a girl of uncertain blood whom they’ve never seen?”

  “I don’t mean I’d arrange a marriage for her,” Kel said. “I mean I’d arrange one for me.”

  His father’s brow furrowed, but he was confused for only a moment. “You mean with Princess Adora.”

  “Yes.”

  King Kelken sighed again. “I don’t object to it in theory, but the princess will not possibly accept you.”

  “Why not?” Kel asked.

  “For a hundred reasons. The children of kings aren’t used to marrying for love, it’s true, but they’re also used to having their marriages arranged. However, King Jotun never so much as entertained a proposal for any of his children’s hands while he was alive, and with him and Landon dead, Adora is free to do as she pleases. Even if she were somehow inclined to do away with her newfound freedom by rushing into marriage with you, it would not be the excellent political stratagem you seem to think it is. The Issamiri throne is in a state of terrible uncertainty, and the best way for Adora to tighten her hold on it would be to marry someone who can get her with child immediately. Even if you did possess that ability, I doubt Adora would relish the prospect of a child husband.”

  “She might not,” Kel agreed, “but if it’s tightening her hold she wants, that’s all the more reason she should be interested in what I have to say.”

  His father glanced at him swiftly, as if he’d somehow guessed. “And why is that?”

  “We could have two marriages,” Kel explained. “I’d go to her, and she could marry me, and then Prince Hephestion could come here, and marry Lessa. So he wouldn’t even be around to contest her claim, because he’d—”

  “Because he’d be here, sitting on your throne,” his father snapped. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why not? I’d lose Reglay, but I’d gain Issamira—a much bigger country, a much more powerful country. Your grandchildren would be kings in Issamira one day—”

  “And some stranger’s children would be kings in my country.”

  Kel glared at him. “Lessa’s children.”

  His father shook his head. “Alessa is not my child.”

  “Does that matter so much?”

  “In this it does.” His chin quivered. “My son, you are very young. You don’t understand what you’d be giving up.”

  “I do understand!” He clenched his fist to strike the desk, but then he considered that that wouldn’t help prove his point, and let it fall back to his side instead. “I don’t want to give up the throne, but I don’t care about it more than Lessa’s life.”

  “It is not yours to give to her,” his father said, slowly and clearly. “I will not allow it.”

  “Why is it so bad that Lessa should have it?” Kel asked. “Do you resent her that much?”

  His father glared back at him, his fingers closing on the edge of the table. “You think I resent her? There were those in my court who would have had me cut that child from her mother’s belly with no tool more refined than the edge of my sword. If it had been caught earlier, no doubt the herbalists could have brewed a draft to end the pregnancy, but your mother concealed her condition for as long as she could. By the time it was discovered, everyone knew it was too late. Then, on the day Alessa was born, the man who once held Eirnwin’s post came to me in my chambers.

  “It would be a kindness, he said. The babe was so weak that it was likely she would not live long, and it would be no mercy to let her grow up scorned and reviled. The damage and dissension she would cause, he said, would affect countless lives—the lives of everyone in Reglay. Compared to that, was not one life a very small thing?

  “I told him I would think on it, and I dismissed him. And then I went to see the babe. She was such a tiny thing—it was the first time I had ever seen a newborn. I expected her to cry, but she did not—she had no teeth to worry at her lip, but otherwise she fretted as mildly and composedly as she does today. I held her in my arms as we took the measure of each other, and I thought about what I could do and what I could not do. I do not know how long I stood there thinking, but when I had done, I swore to her that I would never harm her, nor would I suffer any other to raise a hand against her while I lived. They had told me none would love her, so I decided to love her myself.” He traced a circle on his desk with one fingertip. “And the next day I took up my sword, and I cut out my advisor’s tongue, for no man deserves a voice who would give his king such counsel.” He shook his head. “You may lay many things against me, my son, but never tell me I did not love that child.”

  “But if you love her, doesn’t that make it easier?” Kel asked. “Am I so much better than she is?”

  His father smiled. “The day you were born, you can believe no one counseled the sword—for one thing, Eirnwin had come into his position by then, and for another, you were our true heir, the one we’d all waited so many years for. But there was … murmuring. Sad looks, and whispered condolences—tears in the eyes of the midwives. I myself … I was not sure what I felt. To know one has a son is an indescribable feeling; to know that son is maimed is just as indescribable, though far different. And once again my advisor came to me in my chambers.

  “I expected Eirnwin to commiserate with me, but he did not. He told me instead that—that I should be proud of you, and look forward to what you might accomplish. ‘If your son is to thrive,’ he said, ‘he must first live with hardships that would overwhelm lesser men. If he triumphs over them, he will have learned resolve in the face of suffering, and the countless lessons that come with weakness and pain. Such a man will make a better king than one who as a boy knew only smiles.’” His father stopped fiddling with the desk and looked at him. “And I believe that he was right.”

  Kel was at a loss for what to say. “Eirnwin never said anything like that to me,” he mumbled at last. But then he remembered how Eirnwin had talked to him about how he’d decided to walk when he was young, and he wondered if that had been what Eirnwin was trying to say.

  “I know … I know I could never look at them,” his father said. “I know I always left Eirnwin to look after you. He could always look at them. Alessa could look at them.”

  Prince Landon, Kel wanted to say. Prince Landon had glanced but never stared, and he had asked Kel about the pain that came with walking but never sought to dissuade him from doing it. It seems to me that you are very brave, he had said—Prince Landon always formed his opinions like that, as if he were afraid that you would disagree with him.

  “I have tried to do right by Alessa,” his father said, “as I have tried to do right by you. Doubtless I have failed in many ways. But I cannot give you what you want, Kelken. Alessa is a sweet child, a worthy child, but she is not my child. The throne is not hers by right, and I will never, never consent for her to sit it.”

  “Then don’t send her to Issamira!”

  “Who else can I send?” his father asked. “What else will move them to help us?”

  “I…” Kel bit his lip. “You won’t let me go? Not for marriage, just … to try?”

  His father sighed. “Why should they listen to you?”

  “I’m the prince—”

  “Of a country they’ve scoffed at for decades. Make no mistake, Kelken, the Issamiri are not patrons of virtue simply because their country is bigger and more powerful than ours. They won’t help us fight Elgar simply because that would be kind; they’ll move against him if and when they perceive a threat to themselves, and not before.”

  Kel frowned. “But how can they not see the threat? Elgar wants the whole continent; it’s obvious.”

  “It is obvious to us, because denial is no longer an option. But the Issamiri can offer themselves a whole range of excuses: Elgar will never attack them because they are too powerful, because the Curse protects them from invaders, because he’ll never be
able to sustain an empire stretched so thin, because he fears making the same mistakes Vespasian Darrow made … There are plenty of arguments that sound reasonable. But none of them change the truth.”

  Kel’s leg started to throb, and he shifted, trying to straighten it out. His father hesitated. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Kel said. “I understand what you’re saying, I just … Ow, I think I should stand up, I have to get it straight.…”

  His father stood up too, and while he didn’t ask if Kel needed help, he came around his desk, hovering close by. Kel reached for his crutches, then eased himself out of the chair, straightening his legs out at the knee. The change in posture did help, and he released the breath he’d been holding, letting himself sag against the crutches.

  His father was still watching him closely. “Everything in order?”

  Kel smiled at him. “Yes, I feel—” But then he caught sight of something over his father’s shoulder, some shift in the darkness at the edge of the room, near the balcony. “Father, what’s—”

  His father turned before he had time to ask the question, and as he moved, the patch of darkness moved too, flinging itself at him. His father stepped back and sideways, and as the thing slammed into the desk, the sudden arrest revealed it as a person, covered up by a hooded cloak but revealing the glint of steel in one fist.

  His father had no blade of his own, but that didn’t stop him from lunging at the figure immediately; he was taller and heavier, and they grappled without any clear winner, the knife pinned away from their bodies. “Run, Kelken!” he yelled. “Get away from here! Get the guards!”

  Kel barely thought about what he was doing; he tightened his grip on his crutches and rushed from the room.

  He couldn’t run as a normal boy could, but practice had made him faster with the crutches than many would have believed possible. He hurried down the hall, passing door after closed door, and he was more than halfway to the other side before he realized he was running the wrong way. He was going past the bedrooms, and he wanted the opposite end, where the stairs went down and the guards had their stations. He whirled around, drawing in a breath to call out for help, but then he heard the soft, rapid patter of footsteps, and he knew it was too late to head back the other way. Perhaps he ought to have yelled, but no one might hear, and then he’d just have alerted the footsteps in the dark. Instead he turned again—and his crutches caught on something, tilting sideways and sending him tumbling to the floor.

  It seems to me that you are very brave, Prince Landon had said, before he died.

  I’m not, he thought. I never was.

  The door beside and behind him opened, and Alessa peered out at him, her surprise giving way to concern. “Kel? Are you all right?”

  She stepped out into the hall, but Kel could still hear the footsteps. “No! No, Lessa, don’t come out!”

  “What?” she asked, but she was already turning to look back down the hall, toward the ever-closer footsteps. She sucked in a sharp breath, but she did not run; she stepped in front of him, and raised her arms.

  The figure in the cloak stopped dead in front of her, recoiling at the edge of what would have been a lunge. It stood there for a moment, hunched, slightly quivering. From his position on the floor, Kel could make out the curve of a chin, a mouth opening and shutting without any sound.

  “No,” the figure said at last, and ran away.

  Alessa crouched at his side, reaching for the crutches. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No—” Kel started, but then he remembered. “Lessa—Lessa, help me up. We’ve got to get to the study.…”

  Alessa passed him the crutches, and he shifted his weight to them after she helped him to his feet. They walked side by side down the hall, but he could not have said which one of them slowed down for the other. The study door was halfway open, and Kel pushed it wider as he entered, Alessa at his heels. He did not see his father at first, and then he did.

  King Kelken was lying on his back on the floor, the blood pooling around him already lapping at the tips of his fingers. His eyes were open, and so was his throat, in a brutal gash that stretched from ear to ear.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “What?” Deinol said. “Free?”

  Roger scratched the back of his neck. “Look, we wanted to tell you, but we couldn’t think of a likely way to reach you. There was no sense in sending Morgan and Braddock off after you and getting the whole lot of you lost or killed at once.”

  The three of them had certainly gotten lost enough on their way back. Luckily, they’d eventually wandered into a village Seth remembered from the days before he’d come to Valyanrend. His memories, added to the villagers’ directions, had proven enough to get them home again, but their bumbling wasted more than a day, and even when they had been on course, they went far slower than when Seren was with them.

  Whatever else it might have done, the return journey certainly hadn’t improved Deinol’s mood. “So we did all that for nothing? Some godsforsaken Esthradian assassin made a fool of me for nothing?” He leaned against the bar, letting out a slow breath. “Do you know where they’ve gone? Can we fetch them back?”

  “They said they’d send word once they got settled somewhere, but they haven’t yet,” Roger said. “It’s probably not a good idea to call them back in any case—best to wait until the heat dies down.”

  Lucius frowned. “Heat?”

  “Sheath protects its own at the best of times,” Roger said, “which, I suppose, is why it helps to live among people who are mostly as crooked as you are. But Elgar’s people may exert more pressure than usual to get people to talk—and they may offer rewards. There’s also the fact that … well, Morgan and Braddock aren’t actually crooked, remember? Morgan never cheated a soul that I can think of, and mercenary work isn’t pretty, but it’s honest. There are some who’ll take that as an affront—those two always acted like they were better than the rest of Sheath, and now they’ll get what’s coming to them, or something like that.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Deinol said.

  “Of course it is. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen.” He looked to Lucius. “Whatever you’re going to do now, I think you should leave the boy with me. He’s seen quite enough danger already.”

  The cut on Seth’s neck had almost healed, but it still itched whenever he remembered it. “No,” he said. “I want to help. I’m as much a part of this as anyone.”

  “Aye, I’m a part of it too, and I can’t fight much better than you can,” Roger said. “I’m just realistic about what I can do and what I can’t.”

  Seth hesitated. “Well … fine. Maybe. It depends what Lucius and Deinol decide to do.”

  Lucius stroked his chin. “There’s something I need to be sure of first. We certainly took enough time returning—Elgar has to have people looking for us. I want to know who, and how.”

  Roger nodded. “There was a whole flock of his men fluttering about Sheath, but then they suddenly dispersed—no guardsmen have bothered us for nearly two days.” He shrugged. “It might be he’s given up on you.”

  “On us, maybe, or on Morgan and Braddock, but he wanted that stone,” Lucius said. “I doubt he’ll just let us have it.”

  “Eh, well, but you don’t have it,” Roger said. “Will he care about you without it?”

  “That depends on … well, on several things.” He frowned. “Do you think there’s any danger that someone will tell him we’ve returned?”

  Roger snorted. “Now that they’ve stopped offering a reward? Not a chance. You and Deinol are no Braddock and Morgan, and even Morgan has friends here. Perhaps they’d sell you for coin, but not for spite.”

  “Good,” Lucius said. “That makes things much simpler.” He stirred, stretching out his arms. “Well, if I am free to walk the city as I please, I’m going to go to Iron’s Den. My sword wasn’t half as sharp as I would’ve liked on the road.”

  Lucius was even more fastidious about his sword tha
n he was about his hair, but Seth and the others knew better than to remark on it. “Don’t go too far today,” Deinol called. “Best to be safe until we know more.”

  Lucius waved to show he’d heard. “Take care of these two, Roger.”

  “Gods, why is it always me who’s got to look after things?” Roger muttered as Lucius swept out. “I’m a swindler, not a guardsman.”

  “Speaking of your particular talents,” Deinol said, taking his seat again, “there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

  “Without Lucius hearing, I take it.”

  Deinol winced. “It’s not that, it’s just … he would’ve made that face at me, that’s all. He never said I couldn’t ask.”

  “You want to know how we can find Seren,” Seth said. “That’s what I want to know too.”

  “What, the woman who stole Elgar’s rock? I thought you lot said there was no way to know where she’d gone.”

  “There was no way for us to know,” Deinol said. “But you’ve got a good head for these things, Roger—might be you’d pick up on something we missed.”

  “Might be,” Roger said, easing the words out slowly. “What’re you going to do if I do?”

  Deinol shrugged. “Maybe nothing.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that for a moment.”

  “Come on, Roger, you like to know things, don’t you? And I’m curious. The boy’s curious. I bet Lucius is curious too, he just won’t admit it.”

  “I don’t know that curious is the word for it,” Roger said, and sighed. “All right. I don’t honestly expect I’ll know anything, but tell me what you can remember.”

  “She said she was born in Esthrades,” Deinol started.

  Roger yawned. “Easy enough for a person to be born somewhere and go somewhere else—Lucius can vouch for that.”

  “I know that. I haven’t finished.” Deinol tilted his head, thinking. “She had at least two blades, but she only used the knife. She carried a sword, but she never drew it.”

  Roger shook his head. “I do know more than people think, but most of it’s odd, so the things you tell me’ve got to be odd too. It’s quirks that’ll give it away—the things that don’t seem to make sense.”