“Draken,” Tyrolean said lowly.
Draken glanced back at him and caught sight of a man-shaped shadow trailing them. It wavered back, into the fog, and disappeared. But now that he knew what to listen for, he heard bootsteps as well—more than one pair. Far more. He groaned under his breath. “Can’t we do one bloody thing without someone trying to accost us?”
“We did just walk all the way through Newporte,” Galbrait pointed out in a low tone.
“Took them that long to catch up to us,” Tyrolean muttered. They walked faster. The boots behind them rapidly sounded too many for them to take on just the three of them. Man-shapes emerged and retreated into the fog, hiding their true numbers and identity, if not their intent.
“Maybe they’re not after us,” Galbrait whispered.
“No, they are. They just don’t know how many we are or they would have attacked by now,” Tyrolean replied in a low tone.
“Or they want to follow where we’re going.” Draken hissed for quiet. How well known were these doors into Ashwyc Palace? Were they rebels, seeking a way in?
Galbrait slowed to study a building. Wrinkled his nose and shook his head before trotting to the next intersection. Tyrolean and Draken jogged after him, barely close enough to see him dart around the corner. The footsteps quickened behind them.
They were about to be trapped. Draken broke into a run, shoving past the Prince. He almost ran headlong into the grey cliff, strode along it, running his hand along the stone and peering at the seemingly blank wall, until he found the doors. He felt all around one to his his swordhand side, peering down. Where a lock should be was just an iron plate. Damn, damn.
“Draken. Hurry.” Tyrolean’s swords hissed from their scabbards.
Draken sidestepped toward the other door. Fumbled his fingers over the iron and found a keyhole. He didn’t answer, too busy yanking the key from its cord and fitting it into the lock.
As the key turned, a knife whistled by his ear and clattered off the door, and then another sank into his shoulder, knocking him into the wooden door. His breath whooshed from his chest. “Bloody Seven—” A gasp cut him off as Galbrait yanked him back.
Draken heard the click of the lock and the door swung wide. Torchlight vaguely lit the steps and mists swirled in. Galbrait snagged the key but it slipped from his fingers and jingled against the cobbles. More pounding boots and a shout.
“Go—go!” Tyrolean, pushing them through.
“The key!” Draken said, turning in the doorway.
“I’ve got it.” Tyrolean kicked at the ground and the key sailed through the doorway to clatter against the steps. “Inside!” He shoved at Draken, who stumbled back against the steps and sat down hard. Between that and his flesh doing its level best to heal around the knife, he yelped in pain. The door slammed shut just as the familiar vertigo sensation overcame Draken. The world spun and rocked and showered them with dust. Draken swallowed hard as his empty stomach twisted.
Fists pounded the door and heavy voices shouted, but it was too late. Every instinct made Draken want to scurry up the steps, escape their attackers who were so close, but the knife in his shoulder had other ideas. He hunched over, trying to breathe. Every motion seemed to make the blade burrow deeper.
“You were hit?” Tyrolean asked.
“Aye.” A breathy whisper.
Tyrolean grimaced, but he reached around Draken and pulled the blade out. His skin sealed quickly. The world rocked again, mortar crumbling down from the stone walls. Draken groaned at the sharp burst of pain and subsequent nausea. All he needed was retching on top of everything else.
“Easy,” Tyrolean said, his hand on Draken’s good shoulder. “Where are we?”
He rubbed his hand over his face. A nearby torch smoked softly, yellowing Tyrolean’s pale skin. “My mother’s quarters are up these stairs.”
“Someone’s coming!” Galbrait hissed from midway up the stairs.
Tyrolean took the steps three at a time to grab Galbrait’s arm and pull him back down into the stairwell.
More bootsteps keeping time—Draken thought he could learn to hate that sound—made them cringe back. He grabbed the torch and extinguished it against the wall. It snuffled out, smoking and oily. They sank back down the steps, quiet in the darkness of the stairwell, though a torch at the top clearly lit a line of marching soldiers carrying seaxes. Draken’s eyes narrowed. They weren’t wearing the King’s bright blue but some muted color not illuminated very well by the torchlight. Save that, Draken concentrated on not breathing. When they’d gone, Galbrait rubbed his hand on the back of his neck and hissed. He’d probably noticed the same thing.
All seemed silent at last. Draken’s voice was gruff but he touched Galbrait’s shoulder. “Let’s go to my mother’s quarters. I don’t think anyone will think to go in there.”
The hearth was cold. She’d left their tea things out. His clothes from the dungeon, his Brînian things, had been carefully folded and laid on a side table, despite their filthy state. The ordinariness of the scene made his throat tighten. Maybe she’d meant for a maid to repair and clean them.
Tyrolean gave him a nod and eased past him. He strode about, checking things, and nodded them inside. “It’s clear. Empty.”
Galbrait cleared his throat as he shut the door behind them, and rubbed his hands over his face. “We both lost our mothers today.”
The Prince’s naked grief reminded him he’d never had Sikyra as a mother. He felt a pang at killing her, but her loss didn’t belong to him. Maybe it belonged to a dead brother he’d never known, or to the royal family. Or to no one. He didn’t know.
He laid his hand on the Prince’s shoulder, rubbed, and released him. “We have bigger problems. The Palace is taken. Those were some Landed color, not royal.”
“One had the ash mark, too.” Tyrolean gestured to his forehead and shut the drawer he’d been looking in. He moved to the next one, and the next.
“We have to leave the palace, Galbrait,” Draken said.
“What? We just got here.”
“It’s over.”
Galbrait turned on him, fists clenched. “You cannot mean that.”
“Stay if you wish. The only reason I’m here is to stop the attack on my people. That’s no longer possible. Ashwyc is taken, your country is at war, and the ships, quite literally, have sailed.”
“That was very well put, Your Highness,” Tyrolean said. He moved a chair from in front of a wardrobe and opened it.
Galbrait’s mouth snapped shut. He glared at Draken for a heartbeat, two. Draken ignored him and went to the cold tub to wash up. The water was dingy from his previous bath and icy cold, but at least it hadn’t been drained.
“Galbrait, if you’re coming with us, clean up. We’ll need to get back through Kordewyn and I don’t trust them letting us pass through in our filthy state again. Then we’ll see to something to wear.” That would take some doing. Draken frowned and splashed himself again and reached for a towel to rub off the worst of the blood and sweat, his skin chilled. He scrubbed it over his face.
“Draken.”
Draken lowered the towel, frowning. “Ty, you needn’t bother. These are a lady’s quarters—”
A rare grin from Tyrolean as he held out a black shirt. “Will this suffice?”
The wardrobe was stacked full of folded clothes, silks, linens, gowns, shirts, trews … Draken cocked his head and stepped closer. A wave of memory swept through him, almost making him sway. He recognized the shirt well enough. Black, woolen, and warm, perfect for slipping through misty woods hunting Brînians.
“Those are my things.”
A few steps and he pulled out a blue gown. It flowed from neat folds, linen to keep it from creasing crumpling on the floor. Floral scents emanated from it. The air was a sharp blade in his lungs. “This belonged to my wife.”
Tyrolean stilled. “Draken—”
“Her name was Lesle,” Draken said, crushing the fine fabric in his fists.
/>
#
“We’ll have to go back out the way we came,” Draken said.
He’d dressed silently in his old things, immersed in the memories raised by scents: Lesle pressing her cheek to his after he’d rubbed in mint oil after shaving, his under-Captain’s wry sense of humor. Tyrolean changed too, and Galbrait, all in Draken’s old clothing and cloaks. The things were a bit big on Galbrait. Draken avoided looking at his companions too closely.
“I cannot just leave the Palace,” Galbrait said. “That’s surrendering.”
“It’s not surrendering. It’s escaping,” Tyrolean said.
“Galbrait, you must come. It’s not safe for you here any longer. I’ll get you to the Bane and we’ll sort out where to take you from there.”
Galbrait stood for a moment. “But I’m King.”
“Aye, you’re King. But Monoea already has one dead King. It needs you alive. Perhaps we can arrange for passage upcoast to the Wyldes. Surely you’ve still some allies there from your posting.”
Galbrait’s brow furrowed and he nodded.
“Good lad. I’ll lead, then.” Draken pushed past him. It was a quick jaunt to the door. One sweep of a torch and they found the key, tipped against a stair riser.
There was no keyhole, just a handle for pulling the door shut behind oneself. Draken swore, thinking of the other door with the black metal plate. “Whoever heard of a door that locks only from the outside?”
“I thought you said you used this door before?” Tyrolean said. He had his swords out and his back to them, watching the stairwell. Galbrait shifted anxiously from foot to foot, glancing between them.
“I did. My mother did it last time, though, and with all the commotion before I didn’t think to examine the doors closely.”
“You used the dungeon corridor to get out,” Galbrait said.
“Aye. You knew these doors. You didn’t know this one only unlocked outside?”
The Prince shook his head. “I’d seen them from Kordewyn before. But I’ve never used them.”
“Right. We have to go down to the dungeon then, and use that door. I know that one works, I saw it done.”
“And if we run into a company of rebels?” Galbrait asked.
“We’ll have to be better than that. Come.”
His mother’s corridor was empty, as was the steps leading down. She had lived in a largely unused wing of the Palace, surely placed near those doors so she could come and go without others paying her mind. It made sense. Draken wanted to quit thinking about her life here in the palace, wanted to stop wondering why she’d kept all his and Lesle’s things, about his dead brother, about how closely she’d followed Draken’s life. Truth, it replaced his anxiety with a dull regret—better to stroll through enemy territory with.
Even the cells were empty. He wondered what the Ashen had done with all the loyalists. Killed them outright, perhaps. They saw no one as they moved between the cells and grisly accoutrements, still stained with fresh splatters of Soeben’s blood. His breath hitched. So much death in a day: Soeben and Prince Aissyth’Ae, the King and Queen, his mother, the Rinwars.
Once Osias had commented on his long association with death. Was he meant to watch the gods amuse themselves with the lives of those he loved?
Voices ahead of them, muffled by stone, interrupted his theological deliberation. He lifted a hand but the others had already paused. He couldn’t make out the words but it could only be Grym and the other guards. They couldn’t make it back to the steps in time. The bars on the cells wouldn’t hide them and it would be easy enough to trap them inside. And deliberation about death aside, he still wanted to kill Grym, even if he had to frame the opportunity in defense. He gritted his teeth and drew Seaborn.
Their quarters were tight in the narrow space between cells, filled with tables for torture and other equipment. He and Tyrolean would be all right with their shorter blades but Galbrait could have a difficult time with his longsword.
Galbrait—of course. Maybe Grym would listen to his Prince.
Grym came noisily, talking casually, as if he knew there would be no one to meet him and his cohorts. Indeed, all the cells were empty. Draken had a moment’s puzzling over that again before the torturer stopped, staring at him.
Three guards in blue followed Grym. One of them spoke. “Aside, sadist, and let us at the Prince.”
Grym scowled over his shoulder at them. “This Brînian is mine. He escaped. The King said any who escape are mine—”
“What King Aissyth says no longer matters,” Draken said. “He is dead. Stand aside for your new King.”
The guard shoved Grym aside and pushed by him. His tone changed, abruptly conciliatory, and he dipped his chin to Galbrait. “Your Highness, if you’ll just come with me, we’ll straighten out this misunderstanding.”
Misunderstanding? Draken’s brow creased. He raised Seaborn. “You’ll have to go through me.”
“And me.” Tyrolean.
“Don’t make me cut you down. You are not his guard; I am. Stand aside, Brînian.”
Grym backed a step, bumped into the guard behind him, was shoved aside. He stumbled against a grisly, stained table with gears attached to shackles.
Seaborn flared in Draken’s hand, drawing the guard’s eye. Draken thrust forward with just time to wonder if he would curse the warning the sword gave his opponent or whether it would serve as distraction. Distraction for the first guard; Draken slashed twice and the man lay dying at his feet, gagging on the blood pouring from his throat.
But it was Draken’s turn for distraction; the smell of blood here brought the echo of Soeben’s screams. The next King’s guard leapt over the first, coming at Draken with his sword on high guard. Draken struck upward belatedly and the King’s guard easily blocked him and struck, not at Draken, but at Seaborn itself.
The shock of the blow jolted through Draken’s arm and resonated through his whole, exhausted body. His fingers loosed their grip and Seaborn flew in a sharp arc to clatter against the bars of a cell. With the torture table at his back, and Tyrolean, Draken had no retreat from the soul-shuddering pain of the blade slashing at his flesh. A deep shout of fury from Tyrolean. Black depths colder than the open sea. And then nothing at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Draken opened his eyes in a small little room, windowless, his arm shackled to a thick bed frame. Tyrolean sat next to him, scabbards empty, one arm shackled to the opposite corner of the bed, the other resting on his upraised knees. Elena’s necklace was gone. He had a fresh bruise on his jaw. Draken’s wondered if it were nightfall. He hoped Aarinnaie had gone, the Bane had sailed. It wasn’t safe for her here.
“Why didn’t they kill us?” he said, voice hoarse.
Tyrolean shook his head. “They must need us.”
They sat in silence for a bit, listening. No sounds. “Have you ever been caught and chained like this before?”
“No. My life was quite ordinary before you came round,” Tyrolean answered.
“I owe you an apology, Ty. I never should have allowed you to come, and certainly not without your knowing the truth about me.”
Tyrolean regarded him for long moments before speaking. “Has it occurred to you these things happen because of who you are rather than who you were?”
“And just who am I? A half-blood liar with middling battle skills and a sorcerous sword.” Actually, not even the sword. They’d taken Elena’s pendant, too.
“You are Prince at Brîn and Elena’s highest lord. You also have a distinct habit of talking your way into unlikely favor. If they kill you, Elena is likely to attack Monoea.”
“The Council Lords will talk her out of it. Aarinnaie—”
“Could talk her way out of attempted assassination on the Queen, but no one can sway Elena when she is determined thus. And she will be, should you not return to her.”
Draken groaned. His head hurt. They must have smacked him on the temple to knock him out. “I shouldn’t have let her r
aise me up.” In hindsight, letting his ruddy father kill him would have been the better tactic. Of course how many times had he faced death and come out on the other side? He couldn’t fathom Elena sending Brînians and Akrasians to die for him in a futile war. He swallowed, waited until his voice approached some semblance of normal. “She’ll be rather too busy defending Akrasia from the galleons already on their way.”
Someone pounded on the door, making them both start. No voice, just the pounding. Then the latch rattled and it swung open. Draken blinked, though the torchlight beyond was dim. As his eyes adjusted, his stomach sank. He could make out Grym’s lean, bent form anywhere. No one spoke as two brawny guards with ash marks strode in, unchained Draken, and hauled him up and out.
They’d brought him to Galbrait’s personal quarters. Draken’s brow furrowed. Did that mean Galbrait was dead? Most likely.
Their weapons—Tyrolean’s, his, and Galbrait’s swords and knives—lay in an unceremonial bloodstained heap on a side table. All the comfortable sitting furniture had been shoved aside. A dining table had been converted to a torture platform. Bolts and ropes and blood marred the glossy surface. A brazier burned nearby, red hot implements stuck into the coals. Grym wore Elena’s Night Lord pendant.
The Ashen dragged Draken toward the table. He instinctively struggled and nearly broke free. The Ashen grunted and dug their fingers deeper into his straining muscles. Instead of dragging him up, they forced him to his knees before the table. He started to struggle again but one of them slammed his studded gauntlet into his head. The world tilted as they yanked his wrists toward the thick table legs to affix them there. His stomach swam and the dim light swirled into a thousand colors.
His bad shoulder tightened in a spasm as they pulled it forward to bind to the table. Abrupt pain sliced through his fugue. He thrust himself forward, bounced off the table, and jerked back, wrenching himself free of their grip. He cradled his bad arm against more stabbing pain, but his free hand knocked a guard back. Despite the pain, his body was fair rested, at full strength. He lurched to his feet and twisted back, toward his sword. He reached the table, scrabbling for it. One of the blades sliced his finger and it stung as it healed.
Emissary Page 28