“They don’t take to themselves easily,” Draken said. “That I took an interest in the rebellion, even for selfish reasons, had to intrigue him. He must have thought he could use me to his own end.”
He thought again of his mother telling him the rebels wanted him on their throne. He shook his head. Magic or not, it made little sense. Still, he felt an odd urge to share it with them. Before he could speak, though, Tyrolean did.
“You brought him his dead son.”
Draken grunted. A habit he’d like to quit, parleying with dead sons. “I owe you an apology, Captain. I asked you to do an ugly thing back there.”
“It’s an ugly world,” Tyrolian said. “You must have hated living here.”
“Not so long ago I thought the same thing about you and Akras—”
Tyrolean stopped walking and lifted his hand to his lips for quiet. Draken slid his sword into its scabbard, shrouding them in darkness. Clinking ahead. Regular intervals.
“We’re coming up on something,” Tyrolean said softly, not quite a whisper, which would carry in the quiet better than his deep voice. Two hushed whispers as he drew his blades.
Draken lifted his chin and sniffed. Tyrolean was right. The air tasted of sweat and fear. A slight draft brushed his cheek.
“The dungeon,” Osias whispered.
Draken could only hope.
And he was curious, if he bothered to admit it to himself. Landed had people who answered to them, which meant holding cages. But it was against the King’s law to have a proper dungeon, with torturing equipment and sadists. Would Rinwar have followed that law?
Draken drew Seaborn for light again, and they crept on. A noise, a low grunt, raised their weapons and hackles. Draken pushed ahead. He wasn’t going to let Tyrolean take the lead in this. Draken had agreed to find the King, to help Galbrait, his old country, and keep this war from his new one. If there was a fight coming, Draken would take the first leap into the fray.
The corridor narrowed, the walls chiseled from the rough, cold bedrock that Sevenfel rested on. It felt as if it weighed on him, as if the whole thing might come tumbling down. A few cracks pierced the stone, seeping dust and scree and water like blood from a wound.
A clink. A wet cough, almost a sob.
Draken strode faster, his arms in fight position. The corridor ended at a T; he paused before broaching the intersection and listened again. Tyrolean tipped his head toward his swordarm and Draken nodded. They rounded the corner, side-by-side.
A guard stood where the cells started; he was armed and alert, a seax in his hand. He leapt instantly to action, bringing his blade up to stab. Draken darted in and thrust him back with a forearm against his chest. The blade nicked Draken’s shoulder on its way down, but he ignored it, bringing Seaborn around to slash open the guard’s stomach. He shouted in pain and staggered back against the bars behind him. Draken snarled and stepped closer to finish the job, but a shout stopped him.
“Leave him. Here!” Tyrolean, breathless.
The guard wasn’t going anywhere. Draken spun and rushed after Tyrolean, who was fighting against two more guards. Draken killed one of them with a growl and not one shred of regret; the man’s sword was about to decapitate the Captain. Tyrolean finished off his and they huffed, staring at each other. Even more shouts were echoing from back the way they’d come.
“This is a death trap,” Osias said.
“Draken!” A hissed, anguished whisper.
“Your Grace.” Draken strode for one of the cells, getting his first real look at the place. Rinwar had not resisted putting in torture equipment, but it was blackened and dusty with age.
Except for one rough table. Draken swallowed, sickened. The Queen, her gown ripped from her body, her chest bloody, her lips open and staring. Tyrolean ignored the dead Queen and started searching the guards for a key to unbolt the King’s cell. The man Draken had injured cried out hoarsely as Tyrolean pawed at his clothing. He found one and tossed it to Draken. “Your Highness? Shall I kill him?”
“Yes! He tortured and raped my wife!” The whites of Aissyth’s eyes glared in the gloom, his chest heaved, his hair and clothes were disheveled and bloody.
Tyrolean tightened, glanced at Draken.
“Do it.” Draken turned away from the aborted cry, the wet sound of Tyrolean’s blades ruining flesh. He unlocked the King’s cell and let him out. “Are you unhurt, Your Grace?”
Aissyth grimaced, shoved past Draken, and went to his wife. He laid his hand on her bloodless cheek for a moment, then tried to cover her legs with the shreds of her gown.
“Your Grace,” Draken said, as gently as he could.
“So much blood,” King Aissyth said.
From the Queen, from the dead guards. On his own chest. Draken barely noticed it anymore. “Your Grace, we must go.”
The King kept trying to cover his wife, to kiss her cold lips and stroke back her hair.
More voices, footsteps. Draken took the King’s arm, quieted his motions, and tugged. Aissyth looked up at him, agony stripped bare. For a moment Draken wondered if he knew anything but his dead wife, if he remembered he was in an enemy’s dungeon, that danger was coming.
“Draken, his wife is dead.”
“So will we all be,” he retorted, tugging on the King’s arm. “Your Grace. We must go.”
“But …”
“We’ll return for her when we’ve put down the rebellion.”
Aissyth nodded and allowed Draken to lead him. Sounds echoed from where they’d come. He led them deeper, past more torture apparatuses. The Wailing Woman. The Tall Man. The Immobilizer. Cracked leather straps dangled from the ceiling. A board of blades, pliers, and other cruel devices. A few were missing from pegs, left scattered around the Queen’s body.
They strode past these and the cells, all empty. The sounds faded behind them into their own huffing breath and quiet footfalls; even the King knew to walk softly, though he still had a bewildered air. After a few turns, Draken realized maybe they wouldn’t be trapped down here after all. He signaled them to stop. They need to regroup, to plan. “Your Grace, do you know the way out?”
Aissyth frowned. For a long-held breath, Draken was certain the King was still too stunned to answer. Tyrolean gave him a look from behind Aissyth.
“I’ve only been down here once, but I’m certain there are a couple of back ways in. It’s how these dungeons were built, so one could escort prisoners in and out without going through the main house.” He caught Draken’s eye, momentary shrewdness overtaking grief and confusion. “The Palace is the same, as you saw when your mother brought you out.”
Draken eased a breath. “As you say, Your Grace.”
“I’ll check to see if we’ve lost them.” Osias turned and scouted back the way they’d come. Within a breath he’d disappeared completely into the shadows and stone.
The others stood quiet for a moment, Draken wondering if they’d ever find a way out of this warren of corridors. He wondered who had dug them and how many people had been worked to death in the process. As a slave in the Palace, he’d been worked fair hard; by now he supposed he’d be dead if it had gone on. Most slaves didn’t live very long. He thought of his father, some nights too exhausted to be angry. No wonder he looked so decrepit when they’d last met. The Monoeans must have worked him hard and long. He squashed the twinge the thought caused and looked at the King.
“Did you know my father was Prince when he was a slave at the Palace?”
Aissyth blinked, didn’t meet his eyes. “Not at the time. I heard rumors later, from the trade routes. It seemed … incredible, really. Too incredible. I disregarded it.”
A lie, and badly told. One that kept Draken from tempering his hard tone. “Why did they torture the Queen?”
The King flinched. His face greyed in the torchlight, shed its rosy glow.
Draken stepped closer. “Why did they torture her?” They had wanted something from the King, he was certain of it. Information, maybe.
Aissyth hissed through his teeth. “Orders. They wanted me to sign orders. My last as King, they said.”
“Who? Rinwar?”
The King said nothing.
Impatience reared like a demon inside Draken. He gripped his sword and it heated in his hand. The King holding back on him now? After all this … after all he’d done? “This has something to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you.” Aissyth drew a breath. He seemed to steady as he released it. A trace of the old, hard King bared itself. “They were orders to attack Akrasia.”
A beat. Another. “Did you sign them?”
Aissyth flinched. “She was my wife. And they killed her anyway.”
Draken stared at him, bewilderment battling with urgent fury. He shoved it all down as soft, quick footfalls came their way. Osias, moving at top speed but not breathing hard. “They come.”
“How many?”
He shook his head. “A dozen, perhaps? Or more. In any case, we must move.”
At the moment, Draken just cared whether they’d have to fight again. But in the back of his mind, things weren’t adding up. They raced down the corridor, took a turn, and another turn. The musty stink of death permeated the air, growing with every step. The torchlight died out. Tyrolean uttered a rare curse. Draken echoed it and drew his sword. He unleashed some of his carefully suppressed anger and the sword flared.
Its light revealed dusty bones scattered on the rough stone floor, and several bodies hanging from shackles. A dead end.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Draken wondered if he would ever escape the sound of boots coming after him from the dark. But then, they were fair trapped, so it was likely. Just not the way he’d like.
“Ideas?” He looked from the King’s pale face to Tyrolean’s set jaw.
“That last turn was a T. It’ll make a bottleneck. If we can fight our way past them …” Tyrolean shrugged and Draken took his meaning. It was unlikely at best. Even Osias looked grim.
“They’ll have arrows. We cannot stay here,” Aissyth added.
“We go back then, to meet them. On the offensive.” Draken shoved ahead of them and took the lead. At the moment he knew only to protect the King. If Aissyth could escape—it would be a long road to the palace—but if he could escape, then he could set Monoea right. Surely if he were free, Aissyth would stop the attack on Brîn. Stop war from breaking out again.
A flaw in his logic niggled at him, but he was too busy to pay it much mind. He raced down the corridor without looking back, the walls feeling close and dirty in the eerie white light of his sword. Godslight, he thought, pure and bright and small against the darkness. It reminded him of Zozia alone in the night sky.
Seaborn’s light cast jolting shadows against the stone, moving like a flickering candle as he ran. He caught a glimpse of the shape of a man with a horned helmet, rearing against the stone. Khellian. It made him falter and redirect the light off the flat of the blade. Seaborn’s light flashed over mere stone. Nothing. A trick of the eye.
He pushed on—shadows couldn’t kill him. He made the mistake of letting his gaze connect with the sword’s light. It blinded him for a moment. He peered past it, still running.
The shadows ahead resolved into actual men with swords.
Maybe it was Seaborn’s light, but they hesitated. Draken killed two of them before they got a chance to attack. A tiny ripple of relief pierced the battle haze that he still knew Monoean light armor well enough to penetrate it without much thought. Then he was full-on fighting, swinging until his arms ached. Men kept coming. His body tired, slowed. His opponents took advantage of it, striking and cutting him. Never enough damage to bring him down, but enough to wear on him. He could see only by the light of his sword. It cast a vicious bloodstained glare on his opponents, demonizing their features. The fighting was hot, dirty, wet. More than once he stumbled over a body and had to fight his way back up from his knees. Shouts and noises blended with the cacophony of blood roaring through his veins. His shoulder ached. His bad knee throbbed. Only furious madness drove him, but it, too, began to flag. His body couldn’t move as fast, he couldn’t swing as hard—
Somehow he knew when the King fell, some otherworldly awareness of his surroundings thrust upon him. Seaborn plunged through the leather plate of day armor on the man facing him. He growled and shoved the dead man aside, blood slicking his free hand—
A high-pitched screech broke through the haze.
Khel Szi!
“Draken.” Osias.
He blinked and stopped swinging. Seaborn’s red-stained light revealed a slew of bodies—what felt like a dozen but in truth were eight, buckets of blood. He swallowed, willing himself calm. No reaction. Not even on the inside. Especially not on the inside.
Someone picked her way across the nearest body and leapt against him: arms locked about his neck, a slim, strong body pressed against his. Her weight nearly knocked him off balance. He turned his head and drew in her scent, still familiar despite the blood. Or maybe because of it.
“Aarinnaie,” he whispered. Weariness and relief surged through him.
“I thought—I thought you—” A sob choked off her words.
“I know. Hush now.” Draken didn’t have the heart to chastise her for coming. He pushed her away gently, toward Tyrolean, and lifted the sword to shed its dim, blood-slicked light, searching out the King in the tumbled wreckage of bodies. Halmar appeared with a louvered lantern and Draken lowered his blade as yellow oil light revealed Aissyth sprawled across the floor.
Draken knelt and laid a hand on Aissyth’s shoulder. The King had suffered a gash across his chest that was deep enough to let bone shine through, and another stab wound that must have pierced a lung. Blood spread from his body in a slow pool. Red spittle stained his lips. He was still warm, but no pulse beat beneath his skin.
“Cousin,” Draken whispered and bowed his head.
A high-pitched gasp made him turn. Lady Sikyra was picking her way quickly over bodies and pushing her way between Draken’s wary szi nêre. Konnan stepped in front of her.
“Let her pass, Konnan.”
Halmar offered his hand. She took it without looking at him and let him guide her to Draken.
“My lady,” Draken said, his voice rough with fresh shock at seeing his mother wearing trousers and bearing a bloodied seax. “Why are you here?”
“You must go. Galbrait is injured,” she said. “Back down the corridor.”
“No!” Aarinnaie cried, and started back.
“Halmar, stop her,” Draken said. “I’ll go.” They couldn’t count on the corridor being secure. Damn Aarinnaie. She should be at the Palace, safe; no. At home. Anywhere but this dank tunnel where a nation had died.
It was Tyrolean who reached out and neatly gripped Aarinnaie’s arm. To Draken’s surprise, she didn’t resist him. Draken pushed by them all as Halmar gave Konnan a few terse instructions. Konnan stepped past Aarinnaie and trotted back down the corridor after Draken. He heard his mother’s moan behind him. “Oh, Aissyth. No. No, my King.”
Draken hissed a curse. Something old and dark and ugly reared inside him. All this blood and torn flesh and machination would only lead to more war, more death. In one day the direct line of Monoean kings had been eviscerated.
Galbrait sprawled, eyes open, moaning wordlessly. He’d been stabbed in the gut. Setia knelt by him, one hand holding a torch for light, the other pressing a folded cloak against the wound. But anyone could see it was futile.
He knelt by the young man. “Be easy. We’ll get you out of here.” But he had no idea how, not alive at any rate. Blood ran from Galbrait like the Eros swollen with Newseason rain. He’d given as good as he’d gotten, though; two house guards sprawled nearby.
Galbrait swallowed and coughed blood. He gasped, “Father?”
After a hesitation, Draken shook his head.
Galbrait moaned again. Draken closed his eyes, wishing he could shut off all his sens
es to the brutality of their surroundings, of their situation. This young, dying man was now King. In a few breaths there would be no more kings. He shuddered, unable to shrug off the old stories of chaos should all the kings die.
“Khel Szi, we cannot stay here.”
“Why did he come, Konnan?”
“He insisted, Khel Szi, when Aarinnaie did. You were too long away without guards.”
Draken lifted his head and stared at the young szi nêre until Konnan’s dappled forehead wrinkled. But it wasn’t his accusatory tone on Draken’s mind. Gods, the orders to attack Akrasia. Soldiers were probably already on the way to the docks at Cold Bank. The King and Crown Prince Aissyth’Ae were dead, and now Prince Galbrait was lost to them as well. There would be no royal orders to halt the attack.
Aarinnaie had escaped Halmar’s grip, though the Comhanar followed close behind. “There is a way to save him,” she said softly.
“What? Aarin, no—”
“It’s simple enough, Khel Szi. Find a guard and kill him for Galbrait. They’re all rebels anyway.”
“We don’t know that.” He glared at his sister. Halmar dipped his chin, drawing Draken’s eye. “I fear it is a moot point. He won’t last but a few dozen more breaths, Khel Szi.”
“No—no magicks—” Galbrait cried out and coughed. It died away as he fell unconscious.
Draken couldn’t slip his sword into this young man’s heart, even if it was going to stop beating soon. “At any rate, it’s out of the question. There’s no time. We must focus on escape. There’s little chance we’d capture a guard in time; there are too many of them and they won’t patrol alone. And the King would not have condoned saving even Galbrait with magic.”
“You aren’t saving Galbrait,” Aarinnaie said. “You’re saving Monoea and Brîn. Think. As King he will owe you his life. We never need fear Monoea again.”
“Aarin, enough!” Damn, his voice was rough again. He cleared his throat and reeled in his impatience. After all, she didn’t know about the impending attack. “They made Aissyth sign orders to send ships to attack Akrasia. We’ve little time to stop them.”
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