“Right, then. Thank you for coming.” He bid him to rest before riding back to Khein.
When he was gone, Draken picked up a small figurine of Khellian and pressed his fingertip against the needle-sharp horns. They drew blood and he watched his skin close over the pinprick wounds. The warrior god’s visage seemed no less stern in miniature.
The bottoms of his bare feet itched as if something had brushed them. “A warrior god craves war. Without it, you have no purpose, eh, old man?”
He set it down and sank down into his worn, cushioned chair to rub his stiff feet, scrolls blurring before him. Four hundred animals dead in the blink of an eye. A village of people the same. Nothing solved, only more questions, only more tangled problems. The attacks were related, had to be.
Were the Monoeans so eager for blood? Not the ones he knew. Not the King he had once followed and loved. Things might have changed, but enough to send roving bands killing across Akrasia? If so, rebellion in Monoea must be sizeable and well-funded. He mulled over what Yramantha had told him, what Kupsyr had said. “May the will of the Seven become the will of all.” A blessing or prayer he’d never heard before. And they’d mentioned magic, both of them had done. He chilled. It was done, then. Monoean rebellion had spread to their shores, out of reach of the King, in search of a willing weapon—
Draken and his bloody, godsworn, magic sword.
Feeling bone-weary, he hauled himself to his feet and walked up the passage to his private quarters without speaking to anyone else. Deep in thought, he bent over a large bowl of scented water to splash the dust from his face and hands. He scrubbed his chest and arms.
A soft knock interrupted his ablutions. He dried his skin with a soft towel and tossed it aside. “Come.”
The louvered door opened at his touch on silent hinges. Cut-work lanterns and flickering candles cast shimmering low light within. Tyrolean eased in the door, looking odd with his tight trousers ending at the ankle and his bare feet sticking out below.
“Fools all, you can wear your boots, Ty.”
Tyrolean shrugged. “When in Brîn, Your Highness.”
“What?”
“It’s an Akrasian expression.”
“Not a very nice one, I assume.”
“Not particularly, no.” Tyrolean walked to a low table, poured out cups of wine, and offered one to Draken.
Draken took it with a sigh. “I’m useless at being Prince.”
“I seem to recall two seasons ago you were trussed like a skinned stag headed for the spit, a blade at your throat for crimes against Akrasia. And yet you managed to save us all.”
All? Hardly. Enough blood had soaked the fields in Brîn that the Akrasians had had a tough time finding clean ground to pitch tents afterward. “I had a fair amount of help.”
“Help that wouldn’t have come without you and the gods to rally it.”
The Oscher wine burned a path down to his stomach and bloomed into warmth. The tension in his shoulders eased.
“Are you going to share what the scout reported?” Tyrolean asked.
“Several farms have suffered attacks, similar in nature to Parne.”
Mildly. “You spoke to the Queen about Parne and your theories?”
Draken went to the table and poured out a stronger measure. “Heard our row, did you?”
“The Queen has never taken difficult news well.”
“She threw a cup at me.”
Tyrolean shrugged. “At least it wasn’t a knife.”
“I’m under a bit of a time constraint. I have to go to Monoea and I can’t work out who did it from there.” Well, from the Monoean King’s gaol, to be more specific.
“I understand she refused your request to go.” An apologetic shrug at Draken’s sharp look. “Her Majesty summoned me and we spoke briefly.”
“I must go, Ty. They asked for me.”
Tyrolean shook his head. “Why? Surely there is someone else who can serve.”
“No. It has to be me. I told you. They only want me.” He debated, then went to a shell-inlaid box, opened it, and drew out the trinkets: the lock of hair and the necklace. “But there’s something I didn’t tell you. They threatened Elena.”
Tyrolean stared, reached out.
Draken placed the items on his palm. “And no, she does not know.”
Tyrolean lifted his brows.
Draken rubbed the back of his neck. “She nearly lost the child the other day. I can’t frighten her like that.”
“She’s more likely to be angry.”
Draken shrugged. “Close cousins, anger and fear. Both make a person do stupid things, like start wars we can’t possibly win.”
A soft snort from behind him. “You avoid war more than any soldier I know.”
Draken spun toward the balcony. Aarinnaie sat balanced on the railing, legs twined through the metal rods, arms crossed, still as shadows.
“How long have you been listening in on this private conversation?” Draken said.
“Long enough.” She pushed off her perch and strode toward them, her hand out for Tyrolean’s wine. He handed it over without hesitation. Draken’s brows dropped.
“You’re right, by the way. The massacre is all the talk. The bodyburners are back from Parne. A few souvenir seaxes have already made their way into the back alleys. Won’t be long before they realize those weapons didn’t make those wounds.” She drank down the burning stuff without a flinch. “Most people are accusing the Gadye at the moment. The brasher ones are focused on the Mance.”
“I haven’t the time nor means to quell rumors, Aarin.”
She shrugged. “You’re the one who wants to avoid war. I’m all for it. We got the sword back from the Akrasians. Now it’s time we got our crown back, the real one, not that flimsy band you wear—”
“Enough. It’s your job to be diplomatic with the Queen and keep us from war while I’m away, so I’d suggest—”
Her tone sharpened. “What’s this? Away where?”
“To Monoea,” Tyrolean said.
“It’s a diplomatic mission. The King has requested my presence.” It simplified a complicated story overmuch, but he wasn’t prepared to get into all of it just now.
Her expression drew in on itself. “When?”
“Within a sevennight.” He had to get off this topic. “Why are you here? Surely not to rehash Parne.”
“No. I wanted to tell you I’m tracking an island bloodlord nurturing a vendetta against you. And don’t feed me that All Princes have enemies’ line again. I don’t like it when your name comes up in connection with such a man.”
He grunted. “Carry on, then. And come back before I’m off, aye? Brîn needs you.”
“Aye, I shall see you before you’re off. But will you see me?” A smile flickered before she melted back into the shadows. Stare as he might, he still couldn’t work out how she moved so silently.
Tyrolean stared after her too. “I only hope she can avoid trouble.”
Draken snorted. “Finding it seems to run in the bloody family.”
“Your sister is a resourceful person, Your Highness.”
So resourceful she had once kohled her eyes and posed as a sundry camp slave just to keep tabs on what the Akrasian army thought of her brother, their new Night Lord. Who knew what she got up to in the alleys and taverns of Brîn?
He rubbed his hands over his face. “It’s all stacking up. The Moonlings, this business with the Monoeans. The Queen is furious with me—far too furious to listen to me recite the ways she’s under threat even if she wasn’t in danger of losing the baby. I can’t even corral my own little sister.”
“I wish I could be of more help, Your Highness. You apparently need more than I can give.”
Draken stared out into the shadows of the courtyard and let his eye travel up to the sky. Rising moons glinted off the mists of the Eidola Mountains. Tyrolean was right. He did need more help. And he thought he knew how he could get it.
CHAPTER NINE
Convincing his szi nêre not to come was the easiest thing he did all day. They knew of his friendship with the Mance King, and no one in their right minds attempted the path up Eidola without good cause. Besides it being a treacherous climb, people didn’t willingly go any nearer to banes than they had to. Draken had been a victim of one of the evil spirits once, and that was quite enough. But he had great need, and he trusted King Osias.
As much as anyone could trust an enigmatic, spirit-filled necromancer.
The trail to the gatehouse high on the mountainside steepened rapidly as Draken climbed. Much too soon he had to use jutting stones and petrified tree stumps as handholds, his boots scrabbling for purchase on lichens and loose rock scree. His scratches healed as he got them, little stings as the flesh knitted. It seemed every handhold made bits of mountain tumble down. His muscles soon settled into permanent protest. His knee worked itself into a dull scream of pain. Again he wondered why the damned magic hadn’t healed his old hurts, only his new ones. But he decided to be glad he’d come alone; he’d just end up cursing Tyrolean’s younger, fitter body.
Sorcorie Aerie, as the Brînians called the gatehouse at Eidola, clung to a grassy ledge. It amounted to a narrow three story stone structure with petrified tree roots for balcony railings, a grey stone turret with arrow slits, and steep, rusted roof. The whole structure leaned precariously over the trail. Silvery-green vines seemed to anchor the structure against the craggy mountainside. High above it, a magic-infused wall of storm clouds penned in the unsettled dead who had been unwelcome in Ma’Vanni ocean depths. Draken would have called the cloud wall a myth, but he’d seen the Mance-made Palisade around Auwaer, a wall that convinced even those who knew better that it was a void of black nothingness.
Draken paused to rest under the guise of watching a fluffy rundit explore off-trail, its long nose snuffling among the groundcover and scrubby grasses. A voice startled him. He slipped down a few handspans, scraping his palms.
“The trail and gatehouse has been here far longer than the Mance have been. Legend claims it was built by Korde himself for his first servant, before the mountains were gated. He was a sorcerer of some renown, separate from the Mance. It was he who found the way to harness the banes for his own use.”
The mountain seemed to shudder slightly, as if to shake him off. Between the climb, the pain, and the mists, he really was losing it. But Draken knew that voice. He forced a smile, but it became easier as a face with dappled skin and silver-streaked dark curls appeared from behind a mist-cloaked boulder.
“Was that before or after the banes attacked the races and mixed them?” he asked.
Setia, Osias’s companion, smiled back. “After. To draw attention away from his other crimes.”
“Which were?”
“Binding the gods’ physical forms to the moons.”
Draken raised his brows. “No small crime, that.”
“I’d lay down a purse of rare you didn’t climb all the way up here for a history lesson.”
Draken sighed. “No. I assume Osias let you know I was on my way.”
Setia nodded. “One of his spirit-eyes did so.”
Draken suppressed a flinch as he climbed up to her, feeling the attention of the dead prickling along his spine. Just as well the ghost was bound to Osias’s will. He suspected Seaborn would kill a bane; he’d just as soon not test the theory on the side of this steep mountain, though.
“It’s good to see you, Setia.”
“It has been too long, Khel Szi. King Osias is most anxious for your company.” She turned, missing his polite nod, and scrambled up the rocky trail like a cling beetle. He came along behind, not even trying to match her pace.
The higher they climbed the thicker the mist got, until it sluiced over his chest like an icy breath. He shivered and concentrated on the physical effort, trying to erase the feeling and warm up his limbs. It reminded him of miserable patrols along the Monoean coast, hillsides glossy with snow and ocean spray dampening the sailors to the bone, leaving them with an inescapable chill in the marrow only the heat of Newseason seemed to thaw.
Near the gate house, the trail started switchbacks, which made for easier, if longer, going. A large boulder rested at each turn and someone had graveled the trail recently, since it had yet to be worn away by winds. Setia perched on top of a boulder, waiting for him.
Draken stopped a moment and looked around. “Why does the trail change? It goes straight up the bloody mountain only to turn fair easy up here.”
“For bowmen. These boulders are frontline guard positions. It’s not to make it easy to climb up, it’s to make it easy to get down within shooting range.” Setia gestured to the trail they’d just climbed. Indeed, two Mance with bows hid where she indicated. They nodded to him, not a trace of superiority in their expressions. Draken realized what an easy target he’d made. Good fortune Brîn and Eidola were allies.
At last they broached the great stone ledge and gatehouse. No one emerged to greet them. For all the decrepit nature of the structure, the door looked sturdy enough, banded with iron shot through with thick black bolts. Setia reached for the latch, did something vague to Draken’s vision, and the door swung open. It was as thick as Draken’s hand was wide and rode on quiet, oiled hinges.
An unfamiliar Mance stood just inside, glowing faintly as they sometimes did in dim light. His silvery hair hung in plaits, his eyes were calm, and his silver-edged white robes were spotless. His every feature was pleasing, but for the black crescent moon that appeared like a black wound on his forehead. By comparison Draken felt dusty and rough, less Prince and more ruffian, sword and bow slung on his back like a common mercenary.
“Khel Szi.” Mance made a habit of speaking the languages of others and this time it was Brînian. Draken had heard true Mance tongue used to call down the dead only a few times, most unpleasant. The Mance bowed deep in greeting, all formality and no surprise. “You are expected.”
“Of course I am. Thank you, Lord Mance.”
The Mance either ignored or failed to notice the dryness in Draken’s tone. “And your are most welcome. Please, come in.”
Setia and Draken entered the gatehouse at his gesture, brushing the sand and dust from their boots on a woven hardroot mat. It seemed odd not to bend to remove them, so quickly he’d become accustomed to Brînian custom of going without. “Is King Osias about? I need to speak to him. It’s rather urgent.”
“His Majesty is aware of your arrival and will come shortly, Khel Szi. Please, sit, be at ease. I shall bring you refreshments.”
Utilitarian benches surrounded a few wooden tables, polished smooth from ages of use. Graffiti marred a few corners, but not in any alphabet Draken knew. Stairs in one corner of the room disappeared to a second story, Draken assumed it led to equally ascetic cot-rooms.
The aerie reminded him of the fashion among female nobles in Monoea to retreat to monastery. Elna’s devotees were particularly popular with women trying to conceive and the monks liked the sizeable donations the nobility granted them. It was an effective enough practice Draken had assumed there was more going on between the monks and their female visitors than prayers and fasting. Needless to say, he’d never agreed to let Lesle go.
“Draken. Why have you come? Is it bad news?” Setia asked when the Mance had gone.
He turned to her with a resigned smile. “It’s rarely good.”
The sun shining through the open shutters brought the dappling in her skin into sharper relief than usual—evidence of her Moonling heritage. He gave her a quick hug. She always felt different in his arms than anyone else he knew, solid in the way of a woodland beast, strong despite her small stature, a touch of skittishness as if she might bolt at any moment. Her little body was warm as sunlight against his chest.
“I see you brought an old friend home on your wanderings, Setia.”
“Old?” Draken said, relaxing at the Mance King’s familiar voice. He turned to him with a grin. “Our friendship isn’t so old, so it must be me you’re referring to.”
Osias returned the smile as he strode in, his long tunic and leggings as clean as ocean whitecaps. He reached out and clasped Draken’s outstretched forearm with both hands. “You’re not so old, now that Bruche is no longer with you. What news?”
“Fair much, and little good,” Draken replied. He dipped his chin to his friend. “I come to beg your council.”
Osias led him to one of the rough tables and gave a distracted smile to the other Mance as he brought out refreshments. “The Queen is well, I pray?”
“Well enough. We had a recent scare and the healers wish her abed. But you know Elena. She is determined to do it all.” He sighed, thinking of her holding the Monoean at bay with the longsword.
“Aye, as is her way.”
Draken took a swallow of wine, fruity and sweet. Osias waved off taking any wine and the other Mance retreated. “Tell me your concerns, my friend.”
“First, I’m off in a short while to Monoea,” Draken said. The Mance’s silvery brows raised but he pushed on. “Mercenary ships flying Brînian banners attacked their coast. They apparently went intent on making war, or whoever hired them is.” He explained about the retaliation on Seakeep. “When I denied ordering the assault, their captain and I came to … terms.”
The Mance King got out his double-bowled pipe, packed it from two pouches, and lighted it with his fingertips. The familiar twined scents filled Draken’s lungs. Osias drew in the smoke and arched a finely drawn brow at Draken.
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