The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  These were the lightly injured, of course. There were more who were still under the surgeon’s care. After the horrors of the hospital and the bone saw had taken their toll, some few of those would return, and some of them would do so on crutches or with an empty sleeve pinned up. And then, of course, there were those who had never returned from the battlefield at all. For a moment, looking at the happy, laughing girls, Winter felt a flash of anger and was tempted to remind them of what they’d lost.

  The thought passed quickly. They knew. Of course they knew. It was in every embrace, every shared glance. They were happy to see Abby and the others in part because they all knew who hadn’t come back. Winter remembered the Seventh Company, cheering for her after she’d brought them out of d’Vries’ horrible mistake at the Battle of the Road. At the time, she’d thought it ghoulish to cheer, dwelling on all the men she hadn’t been able to save. But a proper soldier’s attitude was the other way around, and somehow, over the course of the past week, these girls had become proper soldiers.

  Jane came in, and Abby ran to her at once, wrapping her in a fierce hug. As it turned out, no words were necessary, on either side.

  After a while, things settled down enough that breakfast could be served. Jane sat at the head of the table, as always, with Winter on her right hand and Abby on her left. Winter caught Abby’s eye when Jane leaned forward to shout something, and they both smiled.

  I wonder if she knows what happened. Probably not, Winter decided. Abby had said she’d only awoken the next day, in the cutter’s tents, where they told her that she’d been very lucky. A ricocheting ball had creased her forehead, but without enough force to shatter bone. Anyway, Winter thought, we only did what we had to.

  A girl in a black armband came in, one of the sentries. She had a musket under her arm and wore a puzzled expression.

  “Sir?” she said, looking at Winter. “There’s someone who wants to see you.”

  “Who is it?” Winter said.

  “I don’t know her,” the sentry said. “She said she heard that this is where they were keeping ‘Mad Jane’s Army’ and that she wanted to join up.”

  “To join up?” Jane chuckled. “And they called me mad.”

  “You can tell her,” Winter said gently, “that we’re not recruiting at present.”

  “Yes, sir. Should I say the same thing to the others?”

  “Others? What others?”

  “There’s quite a few more saying the same thing,” the sentry said, glancing back toward the front door. “We’re trying to get them to form a queue.”

  Winter met Jane’s eyes. One corner of Jane’s lip quirked, in her familiar, maddening smile.

  RAESINIA

  Raesinia had been expecting to return to her old rooms in the Prince’s Tower, but after the parade and the interminable audiences, the servants had conducted her to the royal apartments instead. It was impossible to fight the feeling that she was being taken to see her father, and she had a brief fantasy that he would be standing there when she opened the door, waiting to tell her that she’d passed an elaborately contrived test.

  Or else his ghost, telling me that I’ve disappointed him with my failure and now he’s going to haunt me for the rest of my days. It was hard to say what he would have thought of recent events. She’d beaten Orlanko, fair enough, but much of the country was still beyond her grasp, and the Deputies-General was issuing orders in the name of the people.

  God only knows what happens next. She had Janus, and that redressed the balance of power enough that she was no longer actually a prisoner, but now that the crisis had passed the deputies were clamoring that Janus was more of a threat to the government than a protection. She’d named him interim Minister of War as a stopgap solution, so he would still be around but with no official capacity to command troops. But that was a fig leaf, and both sides knew it. If Janus gave orders, the Colonials would obey, regardless of his official role, and so would many of the volunteers.

  She ghosted through the anteroom, the presence chamber where her father had received important guests, the private dining room where he’d entertained his friends. There was very little of him left in the place. Some kings had worked hard to put their stamp on Ohnlei, but Farus VIII had been willing to let the unfathomable palace bureaucracy have its head. His rooms were richly furnished, but somehow anonymous, without a soul, a place where someone had stayed but not really lived, like the world’s most expensive hotel.

  Liveried servants waited beside every doorway, bowing as she approached. Raesinia passed into the bedroom, told the footman inside to get out, and shut the door behind him.

  At least the week’s interval had given them a chance to freshen the place up. When her father was well, Raesinia had met him in the outer chambers, so her only memories of this place were from when it had smelled of sickness and death. The sick-sweet stench of the doctor’s concoctions, the reek of the royal bedpan, and the too-strong perfume the servants sprayed to cover it up. Now it smelled of starch and fresh linen, and the four-posted bed was decked with a different canopy and set of covers than she remembered. Hell, I bet they had to burn the mattress.

  Paintings stared down at her from the walls. There was her father’s favorite family portrait from when Dominic had been twelve and she herself had been an infant. Her mother, Elizabeth, a pale, dark-haired woman of whom Raesinia had no memory, stood holding the baby by her father’s side. The next portrait over was her grandfather, Farus VII, and on the other wall was one of the slender, sickly Farus VI. More women she didn’t recognize, great-aunts and great-great-aunts, clustered around the great golden-framed portraits of the kings.

  How did Father sleep with all of them staring down at him? Raesinia shook her head. It’s a good thing I don’t sleep, I suppose.

  She went to the bed and tossed herself into it, sinking deep into the feathery morass. Her dress wasn’t designed for lying down, and she could feel it tugging and pinching her skin, but the pain barely registered.

  What happens next? She hadn’t really devoted any thought to it. For all that she’d worked and schemed to get here—because it was the right thing to do, because it was what her father would have wanted, because she couldn’t stand to let Orlanko win—now that she’d made it, she wasn’t at all sure what to do. If she let it, Ohnlei would devour her, sinking her days in mindless ritual and spectacle designed to give a sense of purpose to an essentially purposeless existence. Some of Vordan’s kings had delighted in it, and given themselves completely to the Court; others, like her father, had resisted, and applied themselves to the business of the state. Raesinia wanted to be one of the latter, but she didn’t know how to start, or whether they would let her.

  It’s been a long day, is all. She couldn’t sleep, but there were other ways to rest the mind. A hot bath, a book, and out of this damned dress. Raesinia sat up, ready to call for the maids—she couldn’t even get out of the dress herself—and froze.

  There was a figure in one dark corner of the room, away from the braziers. As Raesinia’s eyes fell on it, it bowed low.

  “Your Majesty.” A familiar voice. Very familiar—

  “Sothe!” Raesinia crossed the room at a run, heedless of her dress and her dignity. When she was nearly there, she tripped on a trailing flounce and stumbled forward, but Sothe caught her one-handed before she hit the floor. Raesinia threw her arms around the woman and hugged her tight.

  “Your Majesty,” Sothe murmured, “please mind the arm.”

  Raesinia blinked and let go. Looking more closely, she could see that one of Sothe’s arms was bound in a sling, and belatedly remembered the pistol ball the maidservant had taken in the shoulder during their escape from the Grays.

  “Sorry!”

  “It’s all right,” Sothe said, straightening her sleeves fastidiously and wincing slightly. “It’s healing, but slowly.”

  “That’
s good,” Raesinia said, then shook her head wildly. “But where have you been? I thought you were dead. When you didn’t come back after that night . . .”

  “I was able to lure the Concordat agent into an ambush and kill him,” Sothe said, as though this were as simple as going down to the bakery for morning bread. “Afterward, though, I was very weak, and my wound needed tending. I spent several days in the company of a doctor of my acquaintance, fighting off a fever.” She gave a little shudder. “Thank God the wound was too high in the shoulder for him to amputate, or I would certainly have awoken without the arm. By the time I was able to move about, you were in the Vendre.”

  Raesinia nodded. “But once Janus let me go . . .”

  “I must apologize for not coming to you then, Your Majesty. But it would have been difficult while you were surrounded by Vhalnich’s Mierantai. I wanted to keep him unaware of my presence.”

  “Marcus met you,” Raesinia said, feeling puzzled. “He may have said something to Janus.”

  “If the subject arises, you should tell them I died at Concordat hands that day. It will give me greater freedom of action.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going to be living here with me, so I can’t very well tell them you’re dead—”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “What?” Raesinia blinked unbidden tears from her eyes. “What are you talking about? I need you.”

  “I know. And, someday, I will be able to stay by your side as long as you wish. For the moment, though, I think it would be better if I remained in the shadows.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I do not trust Janus bet Vhalnich.”

  There was a long pause.

  “He did save the city from Orlanko,” Raesinia said. “I don’t know if anyone else could have done it. And just afterward . . . if he’d declared the deputies dissolved and himself king, I’m not sure anyone would have been able to stop him.” Raesinia had been half hoping he would. She couldn’t let him, of course, not in good conscience, but at that moment she’d been as helpless as the rest. And then I wouldn’t have to worry about “what next?” “He’s done nothing to draw suspicion.”

  “On the contrary,” Sothe said. “If he had made some move to take power for himself, or wealth, or even pressured you to increase his holdings or his title, that would make some sense. But he’s asked for nothing, has he?”

  Raesinia shook her head. “Not yet, at any rate.”

  “And that is suspicious. What is his motive? He saved the city, he saved the deputies, he saved you, but why?”

  “You don’t think he simply wishes to serve his country?”

  “If he does, I owe him an apology.” Sothe frowned. “He knows something that very few people know—that there is still magic in the world, if you know where to look. He knows about your . . . condition. And I have been investigating what he did in Khandar. I think . . .”

  “What?”

  “I can’t say. Not yet. But I don’t think he’s a simple patriot. He wants something, not wealth or even the throne, but something else. I intend to find out what that is.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I understand,” Raesinia said. “And you’re right. It would be nice to have someone around here that I could really trust, but you’re right.”

  “I will make regular reports,” Sothe said.

  “Be sure that you do. I’m certain I’ll have other need of your talents, aside from Janus bet Vhalnich.”

  Sothe bowed her head. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  She slipped to the doorway, one leading off into a servants’ hall, silent as a shadow. Before she could leave, Raesinia cleared her throat.

  “Sothe?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  “So am I, Your Majesty.” Her lip curved, just slightly, in what was very nearly a smile. “So am I.”

  EPILOGUE

  IONKOVO

  In the silent corridors of the darkened Royal Palace, a shadow rippled like black ink. Ionkovo stepped out of it, dressed in his working outfit of loose, dark leathers. He had a long knife in one hand, its shine dulled by lampblack.

  There would be at least one guard just outside the queen’s room, he was certain, but he’d slipped past the outer perimeter. With the palace practically shut down, it was easy to move about without running into any stray servants.

  He eased a door open and slipped into a long corridor, lined with large-paned windows on both sides looking out onto grassy courtyards. The moon was high, throwing a silver light that stippled the floor with shadows. Outside, the wind was picking up, and the manicured flowers along the walkways dipped and nodded.

  The pontifex had been specific about what to expect. A simple assassination would be insufficient. Accordingly, there was a leather bag attached to Ionkovo’s belt, big enough to contain the young queen’s head. His instructions were to convey that grisly trophy all the way to Elysium. He wondered if the poor girl would be awake for the whole bumpy journey, and what it would be like to be reduced to a disembodied head.

  I don’t suppose it matters. But he couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy. After all, she might have been one of us, had things gone differently. If she had kept faith.

  Something tinkled gently against the window to his left. He glanced in that direction, but there was nothing but moonlit grass and flowers, whipping back and forth in the violence of the wind. Ionkovo shook his head and continued down the corridor, moving noiselessly over the marble floor.

  Tink. Tink, tink, tink—

  He spun, backing away. Tiny objects were bouncing off the window, like hailstones wildly out of season. As he watched, a thick cloud descended into the garden, and the impacts multiplied. The sound rose to a roar like the ocean crashing against rocks.

  Then the glass started to crack, a spiderweb of thin white lines splaying from one side of the pane to the other. Ionkovo stepped backward, knife raised, a deep shadow underfoot.

  The window exploded inward in a spray of glass and—

  Sand?

  The sand was everywhere, rushing into the corridor from the courtyard like water pouring into a holed ship. When he tried to breathe, Ionkovo got a mouthful of flying grit. The only thing that kept him from diving into a shadow at once was the knowledge that he would have to report this to the pontifex. What in the name of the Savior is going on?

  The sand swirled, pulling together into a tall whirlwind. It began to shrink, and through the drifts a human figure became visible. A few moments longer and it solidified completely into a tall, thin man wearing odd, baggy clothing. His skin was a chalky gray that marked him as Khandarai, but his face was invisible behind a steel mask, featureless except for three thin slits.

  “You wish to harm the queen,” the apparition said, in accented Vordanai. “I cannot allow this, abh-naathem.”

  Ionkovo blinked dust from his eyes. “And who are you?”

  “I was Jaffa-dan-Iln.” The steel mask tilted slightly. “You may call me the Steel Ghost.”

  “You’re a long way from home,” Ionkovo said. “What is this queen to you?”

  The Ghost’s voice was flat. “The enemy of my enemy.”

  There was a long pause.

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Ionkovo said. “Even the pontifex thought your cult had died out long ago.”

  The Ghost only raised a hand. The wind rose to a shriek, filling the corridor and rattling the windows, and a blast of sand stung every bit of Ionkovo’s exposed skin.

  He exerted his own power, and the floor rippled underneath him, dropping him neatly into the shadow realm. Safe in the darkness, he considered his options. It would be interesting to test his power against this demon, and that would give him the chance to complete his mission—

  But
no. More important to report this information to Elysium. That, across the sea, the ancient enemy had survived.

  There are still servants of the Beast.

  THE PONTIFICATE

  The council chamber of the pontificate was a dusty triangular room, deep in the bowels of the great fortress-city of Elysium. It had once been richly appointed, and some vestiges of the finery still remained. The heavy, three-sided table was carved from fine hardwood, and under its coating of grime, gold and silver inlay glittered.

  No servant had cleaned the room in years, because it was no longer necessary. Following the Great Schism and the subsequent reforms, one of the three pontificates had ceased to exist. The remaining leaders of the Church, the Pontifex of the Red and the Pontifex of the White, met up above, in daylight and full view of their followers. Elysium was riddled with chambers like this—whole wings that had lost their function centuries ago, closed up and abandoned to silverfish and cobwebs.

  The leaders of the Red and the White entered together. The Red took his seat casually, while the White pulled his out, then carefully wiped it down with a silk cloth, lest the dust stain the perfect purity of his robes. They exchanged a look and settled down to wait for their colleague, the one who no longer officially existed.

  The Pontifex of the Black was a man in his middle years, with a broad, powerful build. His face was concealed behind the mask of his order—black cloth, covered with hundreds of facets of black, volcanic glass, so the light seemed to ripple across him as he moved. His voice was a thick, unhealthy rasp.

  “Brothers,” he said, taking his own seat. “Thank you for answering my call.”

  “It seems to me that you have much to answer for,” said the White. He was an old man, with hair as snowy as his robes of office under his tall cap. “This entire situation is the result of your meddling.”

  “I am afraid I must agree with my Brother of the White,” said the Red. He was a younger man, round-faced and ruddy-cheeked, with bushy eyebrows and a squashed bulb of a nose. “This is not the result you promised, when you proposed to intervene in the matter of the Vordanai princess.”