Daughter of Ashes (Rise of Aiqasal Book 1)

by Moira Katson

  He turned his face from her; his eyes were closed in pain. “I knew when I left the hall tonight that I’d seen my last of it. Perhaps I was wrong about them all, perhaps they will save Aiqasal. My uncle has made his mistakes, but he … he’ll rule well again, for all that magic was all he wanted in this life. He’ll rule.” He swallowed hard, wiped his brow. “I’m not making a very good end, am I?” His voice was shaking.

  She could barely see through the tears. “Darion, I can’t.”

  “You have to,” he said gently. She could not move and so he came to her side, knelt unerringly to reach for the knife. She shuddered as her skirts fell back to the floor and he wrapped her fingers around the haft. “I meant what I said to you that day,” he told her. “I was the one who did it. Nothing changes that. Nothing excuses it.”

  “You didn’t know the truth.” Her teeth were chattering. “You thought they really were conspiring against you.”

  “They were, Alleyne.” His face was resolute. “I saw the evidence of it with my own eyes. If there was any way to refute it, any at all, my uncle would never have brought me that evidence. I do not hide from what I did, and neither will I let your parents do so.” He looked away. “But I could have insisted that I hear their confession myself,” he said quietly. “That way, I could have asked them why. Now I will never know. And I could have spared you, Alleyne. You and your brother, both. Did he survive?” He shook his head before she could answer. “It’s not important. None of it is important, save for what I did. Whatever other plots are being brought against me, they are part of a storm that has been gathering for generations, and yours, at least, was of my doing and mine alone.” Hesitantly, he reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair back into its place. “I should never have asked your forgiveness. I prayed for it every night, but I should never have asked for it.”

  She could not answer that; if she did, the sob building in her throat would break free. “If you die, nothing will change.” She shook her head. “You said if the empire continued as it was, it would fall.”

  “Then perhaps it is time for it to fall.” He met her eyes. “I cannot run from justice anymore. It has torn me apart me since I gave the order.”

  Her fingers tightened on the knife. Her eyes were stinging with tears, the muscles of her arm tightening as she prepared to drive the knife into his chest. “I didn’t want to love you, either, you know,” she whispered. “If it was a trap from the gods, we were both caught in it.”

  His fingers brushed her cheek and his kiss, when it came, was soft as a breath. His hand tightened around hers on the grip of the knife. “Do it,” he told her again.”

  The moment seemed to contain an eternity within it. Was her heart still beating? She could see her life stretching away, years and years, and Darion dead at her feet, and the inevitability of it was a weight on her chest. The wheel turned, justice was served. Years had brought them both here, to the point of the knife against his breast and the strength of his hand around hers.

  And she rejected all of it.

  “Did it make you a better ruler?”

  “What?” He drew back to stare at her.

  “That regret—did it make you kinder? Were you more just?” She looked up to meet his eyes. “Did it make you the ruler who saw what Aiqasal could become, not just what it had been?”

  “Alleyne …” His smile was so sad that she wanted to cry. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because I am sick to my heart of vengeance!” The words burst free of her and she uncurled her fingers beneath his. The knife clattered to the floor. Something fierce and wild was twisting in her blood, terrifying and exhilarating. The sickening dread that had settled in her chest weeks past was lifting, and part of her clawed to keep it. She had been born to kill him, her mind hissed.

  But she had been born for so much more than that. She had been born for joy and kindness, to parents who had wanted her to make Aiqasal more than it was, better than it was. It was her own vow, so many years ago, that collapsed her world into nothing more than revenge.

  She felt the vow tear loose and she was floating. Who was she without this? She no longer knew, and she was terrified.

  “Alleyne?”

  “I am. I am sick of revenge. I am sick of death. I cannot …” She was shaking so hard she could barely stand. “You are more than one choice, and revenge … revenge doesn’t care what it hurts. It would burn the whole world without a thought, just to get to you.” His face did not clear, and she shook her head desperately, searching back through his words to show him that this was beyond them both.

  If there was any way to refute it, any at all, my uncle would never have brought me that evidence.

  She stilled. Another memory surfaced, sunlit gardens and her interest as she looked over at him.

  … for all magic is all he wanted in this life. He’ll rule.

  My uncle said I should come to spend time with my lovely bride.

  There is already an agent in the palace, or so I am told.

  Of course. It had always been the simplest answer. Certainty settled, cold, in her gut, and she did not realize she had moved until her hand was on the handle of one of the great doors and he was blocking her passage. She had snatched up the knife

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to—” She shook her head at the impossibility of describing this. It was only a suspicion, she tried to tell herself, but she knew it was true, and she would not let this crime go unanswered. “I have to go,” she said finally. “There’s something I have to do.” Impulsively, she reached up to touch his cheek. “Keep your guards with you. The other assassin—”

  “I’ll keep them with me.” He bent to kiss her, and groaned when she swayed against him. “Go.” His voice was rough. “I will wait for you.”

  She had learned not to look back. She left with her lips swollen from his kiss and the warmth of his gaze on her back, and she broke into a run as soon as she was out of sight.

  There was one last enemy to confront.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  In the absence of a consort, the Regent had taken those chambers, separated from Darion’s by a small chapel to Elius. No guards patrolled here; it seemed that the Regent enjoyed his privacy. She lifted her hand to knock, suddenly hesitant, and then stopped. A slow smile spread across her face.

  These were her rooms now. She pushed the door open and made her way into a receiving room with a small throne to one side; the consort would occasionally hear petitions in their privy chamber. In contrast to Darion’s rooms, it was richly appointed. Any luxury one could have, could be found here: thick rugs, silk hangings at the window, a bowl of fruit and a glass of wine, half-drunk. She could smell the rich scent from where she stood. The Regent, it seemed, drank only the best.

  Perhaps someone should have asked what sort of estate the Regent could keep when he no longer commanded from the consort’s place. Perhaps they should have asked what he might do to keep all of this to himself.

  She was drawn across the room by an invisible pull, Alogo’s call once again strong in her mind. She remembered the god’s silence in Darion’s chambers, and swallowed. It had not been Darion she was meant to kill tonight.

  She pushed open the door to the inner chambers and paused, half-expecting some sort of flare of magic like she had seen in Jarin’s rooms, expecting the magelights to come to life and show her the Regent waiting in a corner, laughing at her stupidity, but there was no one. In the years since he’d sent her parents to their deaths, the Regent must have begun to believe that vengeance was no longer coming for him. No trapdoors opened on the floor, no cages dropped from the ceiling. There was only a room with a silk-draped bed, and tapestries of the four gods.

  She still found herself holding her breath.

  She padded into the center of the room and spun to look around herself. Almost, she whistled. If the receiving room was rich, this was richer. A wine jug of chased silver gleamed on an inlaid table, and the matching goblet wa
s set with sapphires. The embroidery on the bed curtains was very fine, and a silk half-cape was discarded carelessly over a carved chair with velvet cushions.

  None of the finery interested her. No, it was the far wall of the room, upon which bookshelves stretched up to the ceiling. A honeycomb along one side held scrolls, leather-bound books lined the shelves, and a heavy desk of deep red wood held sheaves of correspondence.

  Somewhere here lay evidence of the plot to kill her parents. Alleyne looked around herself. Where to start? It would hardly be labeled, but then again … The correspondence might hold a clue. The plot to take the thrones was real enough, Margery had said. And it still was, wasn’t it? For now she knew just who was sponsoring the plot to go to war with Rasteghai.

  An assassin would strike Darion down, and with his nephew dead, the Regent’s path would be clear. He would order questioning for the assassin, naturally, and of course the assassin would die during questioning. Such things happened. Regrettable. Before he died, however, he would spit out a single word: Rasteghai. Perhaps he would confess that the peace treaty was no more than a plot, perhaps not, but either way, the damage would be done.

  And Jarin, present for the questioning, would swear that the assassin had been telling the truth, the Regent would go through the motions of asking the court’s approval for a war, and there would be no complaint.

  She went to the desk and flipped the sheaf of papers open. She saw letters in a multitude of elegant scripts: a correspondence with the Office of the Treasury, illicit but not damning; letters from the steward of the Regent’s lands; letters from any number of nobles, asking the Regent’s help to abolish Darion’s edict. Those, she was fairly sure, were being kept as blackmail. She rubbed at her arms absently; the room seemed cold all of a sudden.

  She realized the truth a moment later—and far too late. She whirled as the Regent himself appeared quietly in the middle of the bedchamber. There was no fuss and no fanfare to accompany the magic. He blinked into existence and the papers on the desk rustled in the breeze. His thumb and forefinger were pressed against the two jewels on the old silver ring and he was smiling. He walked toward her, the smile never wavering, and then one hand rose casually to hit her full across the face. The smile faltered only when she blocked the hit, jerking her head back and catching his wrist.

  He wrenched it away, lip curling. “As foolish as your parents, I see.”

  He had known, then. He had known all of it. She whirled to run, but a cage of magic sprang up around her. It began to shrink at once and she hurled herself against the bars of it desperately. They flared at her touch, and her skin went ice-cold; she yanked herself away with a cry.

  “On your knees,” the Regent said casually. The cage enforced his order the next moment, pressing her down so she must kneel on the stone floor before the desk. She shrank away from it, and only then caught sight of the satisfaction on his face. “A pleasant sight. You aren’t your mother, but you will do. She escaped far too easily, you know—the lovely Roxanna, ever loyal to her thrice-cursed morals. I would have had her tortured for what she denied me. My nephew was determined to be merciful, however. Of course, you took care of that problem for me, did you not?”

  Alleyne stared up at him silently.

  “Answer me, girl. Is my nephew dead?”

  It was one thing to put the pieces together in her head, and entirely another to see the truth of it in the hatred on his face. If she stood, her knees would have given out. The breath left her and she stared up at him in blank horror.

  “I was the assassin.” Her lips were numb; she tripped over the accusation. There had never been another. In the kitchens that night, when the lord spoke of an assassin already in the palace, it was Alleyne he spoke of. The Regent had seen her in Baradun’s rooms, had known at once who she was—and why she was there. That was why Jarin had not even attempted to see into her mind once more.

  The cage pressed down on her for a moment longer, then the bars shifted and flowed over her wrists to pull her arms apart.

  The Regent’s fingers tangled in her hair to draw her head back. “Is my nephew dead?” he repeated.

  She could have some small satisfaction, at least. Alleyne smiled. “No.”

  There was no escaping this blow when it came. Her head snapped sideways and she tasted blood. He made to kick her, and pulled back only at the last moment, and she stared up at him, tasting blood in her mouth, the sound of ringing fading slowly from her ears. Did he think he could frighten her with mere violence? She was not afraid. She had been hit before.

  “Then you shall wait, and kill him when I say it is time,” the Regent told her. He was breathing hard in his anger; she could see how much he wanted to strike her again.

  She had made her choice, but it took courage to say it aloud: “I will not.” She flinched away from the next blow.

  It did not fall, however. The Regent stared down at her, his face impassive. “Where is the Blood of Gods?”

  “What?” The answer escaped her before she realized she should have pretended to know. She should have bargained her way free.

  Her ignorance made his anger flare again. His hand swung up, trembling, and he held himself back only by a thread of self-control. He muttered a single word a moment later, and pain stabbed through her wrists where the bonds held her. She cried out, and saw him smile. The pain increased, a steady throb in the bones where the magic touched her.

  “I will ask you again. Where is the Blood of Gods?”

  “I don’t know!” She had to kill him. That was the only thought in her mind. She had to escape, and kill him.

  “Oh, come now.” His anger vanished, and she saw true humor in his eyes. “You cannot kill me.” He lifted his brows at the look on her face. “I’ve been taught some of the Truthspeaker’s art, enough to sense intent. You want to kill me, girl? You want to avenge your precious mother? You don’t even know what she was.”

  “A mage. Like you.”

  “That is only part of it. She, too, sought the Blood of Gods. She knew it could remake the world.”

  “Is that why you killed her?”

  “Yes.” He did not bother to dissemble. “She found it, somewhere in Rasteghai. And then she hid it from me.”

  Alleyne blinked. This did not make sense. A plot to take two thrones … “I thought she found your plot for the throne.” His brows lifted, and a thought struck her, suddenly. “Nerea?”

  “Not as much use as she thought she was,” the Regent said idly. He did not bother deny it. “A fair mage. A strong mage.” The correction was grudging. “She seemed perfect for my purposes. I could not use the same channels again, of course, once they had been discovered, and I have always preferred subtlety to outright violence. But Nerea didn’t have the simple good sense to pretend to agree when my nephew started spouting that ridiculous nonsense about the populace. He would have married her in a heartbeat—does that hurt you to hear, Alleyne?—if she had only lied. If she met him there and led him to our purposes … if she let him speak as he would and went behind his back … but she could not do either. She wanted to be consort—a true consort.” The twist of his mouth said that he was quoting Nerea’s own words. Contempt dripped from him. “Whatever that even means.” He lifted a shoulder carelessly. “So she had to go. I cannot afford such weakness. Aiqasal cannot, if it is to rise to its rightful place.”

  Horror crept through her. “You wish to conquer the world.” It would be a laughable statement if it were not true. If he did not have the power to do so.

  “So you do know something, after all. But how, I wonder? That maidservant of Baradun’s, perhaps? Your mother dragged your father down with her—perhaps you’ll do the same for the maid. What was her name, again? M something. Marie, Michelle …”

  Panic lodged in her throat, and it was a struggle to speak. “She is nothing to you.”

  “Oh, but she is. You see, she is something to you—and that is enough.”

  “If you kill her, it will
not be my fault.”

  “I do believe your mother thought the same. She was wrong.” The Regent smiled down at her. “Your father never would have died but for your mother’s choices, little girl.”

  “And me?” Alleyne stared up at him. “Was I no more than a piece of revenge for you?” She would not tell him of Almeric. She willed herself to believe that she was the only Alsebrun child left. What he could hear in her mind, she did not know, and she would not betray her brother.

  “Oh, no.” He crouched down at last to smile at her. “You were so, so much more than revenge. They were dead, your pain could not hurt them, and I am not such a fool as to sacrifice a game piece for nothing but spite. No. You had a different purpose.” He rose to pace. “Killing them was not enough to cement my nephew’s reputation as a tyrant, you see. They were traitors. They had to be, I couldn’t have anyone believing in their innocence—so what sympathy could they garner? But you and your brother were innocent, helpless. If I could only convince Darion to kill you … the court would never back him for love after that.”

  The depth of the betrayal shook her, and she could not escape the sound of his laughter ringing in her ears. “Did you want him deposed?”

  “Perhaps. I could have argued for it someday, if I wished. In truth, I did not know how I would need to use him—only that he stood between me and what I sought. I needed him isolated. His order for your deaths … accomplished that. They never forgot it.” He smiled.

  “You think you’re very clever,” Alleyne murmured. “Surely it cannot be pleasant that some of the court have forgiven him … or that you never did find the Blood of Gods.”

  His fingers twitched. “Careful, girl. You are useful, but not indispensible.”

  “So kill me.”

  “Oh, no, not yet. I rarely give anyone so quick a death as that.” The cruelty in his smile was breathtaking. “If you push me too far, you will die—but first I will ruin you entirely. I think you would not want anyone to find out who you are. Especially, I would guess, a certain someone.”