You look in poor shape, Master, Osseus said, lifting his wing to readjust the slumping necromancer.
Gynoth lay there, being shifted to one side and the other by Osseus’s wing. His skin was of pallid color, bones showing through like cracks in ice. He was gaunt and disheveled, missing chunks of hair. Three of his teeth had fallen out, and he’d developed lesions on the palms of his hands.
The only medicine for his misery was rest. And rest he did. He slept on the slow flight back to his fortress—a lethargic journey due mostly to Osseus having to keep Gynoth secure on the saddle—and he slept for days after he returned.
When he awoke, he felt a tremble in his spine. He sat up, the emerald wood frame of his bed creaking not under his weight but from another quake.
“It’s been happening for two days now,” said his Lord of the Risen, Lairn Prinus. The skeletal, fleshless man sat at a desk, a map sprawled out before him. “Your dragon asked me to be here when you woke. I thought it a good idea, as well.”
Gynoth put his feet on the granite floor of his room high in the fortress. He felt a tremble in his soles.
“They’re closing in,” he said, despondent.
“A FAIR DAY ONCE MORE,” Craw said, itching his crotch. “Guess that blows up the whole theory behind nature’s mercy, don’t it?”
Rol rubbed his eyes. His face felt chapped. Not his lips, but his entire face. He supposed that was normal, given he’d been on the saddle of a dragon for two days now. Five total, if he counted the time spent from Torbinen to Baelous. The pain of raw cheeks and itchy eyebrows and cracked lips, however, paled in comparison to the pain of listening to Old Man Craw.
“D’y’know what nature’s mercy is?”
Rol yawned. He thought maybe if he didn’t answer, Craw would shut up. He thought wrong.
“Story goes like this,” Craw said, his voice wistful, which seemed to always precede a long, drawn-out tale. “When someone ya love dies or gets hurt real bad, say maimed by a red-eyed, hot-tempered goat, nature cries soon after. That’s what the rain is, tears from nature. Nature’s mercy. See? But it’s been drier than a winter—”
Rol threw up his hand to quiet Craw. The old man grumbled.
“Look down there,” Rol said. “No, over here.”
“My,” Craw said, squinting. “Those waves are so big they could topple a little village. Maybe even a big village.”
“Get lower, Grish,” Rol said. He thought the morning mist and fog rising from the Glass Sea could have made for a convincing illusion of cresting waves on the water’s surface. “There you are, right here’ll do.”
They were below the snowy tufts of fog now, and the waves had only gotten bigger. Also, the waves were going the wrong way, out to sea instead of in toward the shore.
Rol didn’t bother relaying this fact to Craw. He figured the old man would go on a rant about how the seas in his day used to be predictable and flowed forward, not back.
The Torbinen shoreline would be within sight soon. Rol figured they were about four miles out now. Grish glided along, a fair distance above the muddy water.
Why is the water muddy? Rol thought. The Glass Sea was never muddy. And why are the waves are crashing inward now? The second question should have brought some normalcy back to his life, and maybe it would have had he not realized the muck sloshing about was not actually muck at all.
Rol licked his lips. “Say, Craw….”
“Huh?”
“Is that what colossi look like?”
Directly below Grish and in front of him, also to either side and behind him, stood—no, marched—gray clouds with some vague definition of limbs, but mostly they were formless. They were at all four cardinal points and the spaces in between.
“Craw?”
“I’m lookin’,” Craw said. “Hard to see. But I’m good ’n’ certain that isn’t normal.”
“Ori said there were a lot of them, but—” Rol shook his head in disbelief.
“That’s more than a lot,” Craw said. “Good thing we got mutations, huh?”
Rol couldn’t possibly count the number of shapeless blobs beneath the murky sea—they looked like a massive amalgamation of shadows—but he figured a couple thousand was a good start.
We’re going to need more than mutations.
“Where’d you say we were headed?” Craw asked.
Rol told Grish to pull up; he had seen all that he needed to. Or rather, all that he wanted to. “We’re going to Haeglin.”
“What’s waitin’ for us there? Frankly, Cat didn’t tell me much at all. The little she did sounded better than twiddling my thumbs until the Conclave returned. Or didn’t.”
“Hopefully a new queen.”
“Ah, queens. Always good, those. Unless they’re not friendly.”
Rol white-knuckled Grish’s reins. “This one’s more than a friend.”
He glanced in the direction of nebulous shapes at the edge of the shoreline. If he’d have squinted, the blurriness would have cleared and revealed the sharp points of spires.
That would be the last time he’d ever lay eyes on Torbinen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“A damned killer is what you ought to be called!” screeched a woman with gray, crunchy hair.
“Is not my fault, I swears,” said the man who was the recipient of her allegations. He wiped rain from his eyes and rubbed his hands nervously as a crowd gathered.
The door to Chub’s Pissery, a Haeglin tavern favorite of the monetarily and morally poor, was propped open by a burly gentleman with a curly mustache and a wooden mug in his hand.
“Clear the way, now,” he said. From the tavern came two men carrying another by his arms. Two ladies dressed in loose smocks had him by his feet. He was bleeding from his head.
They set him in the wet grass and called for a savant. Then the scene more or less returned to normal and people went on their merry way, gossiping over the hammer throw competition that had gone terribly wrong.
The man responsible for accidentally—as he professed—chucking the hammer through the window of Chub’s Pissery, clubbing a one-eyed drunk in the face and turning him into a no-eyed drunk, pleaded for forgiveness from the woman who relentlessly accused him of murder.
“The handle,” he said, hands gesturing this way and that, “it was wet! I had no powder on my hands; please, you must believe me. I’ve been throwin’ hammers since I was twelve.”
“Don’t have to convince me,” said the woman, a disapproving scowl affixed to her walnut face. “Jackals, they’ll be here soon enough.”
Oriana and Horace had watched this all unfold from afar.
“This isn’t the first time hammer throw competitions have maimed or killed someone,” Oriana said. “We should get inside before the Jackals show; I’d rather them not see me. I’d rather get out of the rain, too.”
Horace nudged Oriana along. They gave a wide berth to a neatly trimmed hundred-foot strip of grass that stretched from in front of Chub’s Pissery to the bathhouse. A team of men on either side picked up their hammers and readied for the competition to begin again.
Oriana rarely imbibed wine and even more rarely ale, and she wasn’t about to change now. She had little interest in sucking down Chub’s infamous So-Strong-Rum-It’ll-Make-You-Dumb, or any of the tavern’s concoctions for that matter. But she went inside, walked the sticky floors, inhaled the scent of honey and cherry smoke puffed from long pipes, and thinned herself between swaying drunken blobs because Horace had told her they were meeting someone important here.
It troubled her that he refused to tell her who, exactly. His reluctance meant one of two things: the person of interest was one she would not care to meet, or—and far more disconcerting—he had duped her. Set her up. Brought her back to Haeglin under the false pretense of becoming queen, all so Bastion Rook and Olyssi could execute her for treason or another made-up crime.
Horace took a square table in the dimly lit section of the tavern, where the windows w
ere scored and foggy and the flames from the candelabra didn’t quite reach.
He flagged down a bar hand and requested a bowl of baked lentils.
“No one will notice you,” Horace said, taking note of Oriana’s jittery eyes.
She hoped that was true. She didn’t look much like the Oriana Gravendeer that the people of Haeglin had come to know—the woman who enjoyed the feel silk dresses on her skin, the glint of bangles on her wrists, and how freshly rinsed and done-up hair made her feel. She looked like the poor and destitute who gathered on the streets of the first rung, homeless and weary.
An ashy smock swallowed her small frame, bunched up in the shoulders and dangling out over her feet. She had a threadbare cowl pulled up over her head, shadowing her dirty face.
Unless someone in the kingdom could identify her purely by the creases around her eyes and the shape of her lips and nose, she was safe. Still… still, she couldn’t help but feel exposed. Naked, even.
The bar hand set a bowl of piping-hot lentils on the table, then scurried away to the hollers of troublesome drunks.
“The Keeper introduced me to these,” Horace said. “I suggest you take a handful before I eat them all.”
“Who’s the Keeper?”
“Long story. I assume he’s dead now, though. I haven’t heard from him since the clutches arrived.” He snatched a fistful of lentils and popped them three at a time into his mouth.
Oriana folded her hands under the table. “I thought Olyssi would have destroyed this kingdom by now.”
“It takes time for mistakes to manifest. The people tolerate her reign, but few enjoy it. She’s rash and immature, and they fear her decision making. She’s done little to progress or regress the state of affairs, but that is mostly thanks to Bastion. He’s leveled her. There”—Horace nodded his pointed chin into the crowd of wobbly and talkative drunks—“is the man of the hour.”
Strong-arming his way through and catching several chins with his knobby elbows, Commander Jameson Jauren approached Oriana in the manner of a man who had business to attend and little time to waste.
Never in her life had Oriana more desired to clench her fist and drive her knuckles into a man’s face. She would have liked to chop off that thick bronze beard of his too. Maybe bunch it up and shove it down his throat. If she was lucky, he’d choke on it and die.
A murderous rage incapacitated her. Jameson Jauren might have been commander of the Jackals, but she didn’t consider him that. She didn’t consider him a man, even. No, Jameson was a monster who had forced his own son—and Oriana’s dearest childhood friend—to kill himself, all because the secret had gotten out that he liked boys and not girls.
Jameson pulled a chair out and flipped it around. He sat down, arms draped over the back. “You’re alive,” he said to Horace. “That’s something. And you”—he raised a bushy brow at Oriana—“you think you’re fit to be queen?”
Oriana gnashed her teeth. No wonder Horace didn’t want to tell me who we were meeting.
“What would your first decision be as her majesty?”
“Something involving you and a gulag.”
Jameson grinned, those jowls of his droopy as ever. “Tell me,” he said, glancing at Horace, “why am I helping her again?”
“Because she won’t send you to a gulag—”
“I will,” Oriana said.
“She won’t,” Horace reiterated. “But if the crown remains Olyssi’s property, she will at best cause wars that will slowly siphon Haeglin’s finances, deteriorate her alliances, and catapult the kingdom into a state of misery and decline. At near-worst, she’ll cause an uprising that will result in the people having the heads of those in power, including you. And at very worst, Bastion Rook outmaneuvers her and everyone else, claiming the throne for himself.”
Jameson snorted and yanked the bowl of lentils toward him, spilling several onto the table. He swept them onto the floor, as if they were diseased, and took a fresh handful from the bowl. “Bastion,” he said, chewing obnoxiously, “would reward me for being loyal.”
“For a short while. He would consider you leftovers, a relic of a kingdom that, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. He’d choose his own commander, eventually.” Horace held Jameson’s fixed glare until it became apparent neither man would shy away. “I thought we had an agreement, Jameson.”
Jameson pinched a lentil between his fingers, rolling it around. He flicked it away. “A good commander keeps his mind open, never commits fully without a plan for retreat.”
This is why I’m sending you to a gulag, Oriana thought. Why would you put your trust in such a foul snake of a man, Horace?
“A good commander,” Horace parroted, nodding along. “You do qualify as that, Jameson. Which is why I’d imagine you know that a spymaster also never commits fully. He doesn’t have a plan for retreat, rather simply another angle from which to approach.”
Jameson chuckled. “Not a lot of men live up to their reputation. You’re one of the few, Horace Dewn. We have an agreement, and I intend to uphold it. In fact, I already have. You’ll hear rumors soon enough. They’re being spread as we sit here.”
“And Bastion?”
“I told him you’re here. Something happened while you were away, Horace. It has… complicated matters.”
Please say that Olyssi fell ill, Oriana thought. She felt a pang of regret for hoping that, but then reminded herself that her father had been taken from her solely because Olyssi had craved power.
“Maya Plommen came here a week ago to negotiate claims over the Emerald Grove. She was assassinated in the Great Hall.”
The faint flickers of faraway candles softened Horace’s hardened face but paradoxically drew out a disturbing aggression in his eyes. “Who’s responsible?”
“Official word from the crown is Gimble Rivace.”
“Olyssi’s right-hand man?” Jameson nodded. “Sounds far-fetched, unless Olyssi ordered the hit.”
“Doubtful.”
“Agreed. Rash and immature though she may be, she’d likely want her first success as queen to involve not war but negotiation. Even Olyssi knows that anyone can declare war, but it takes a good mind to close on favorable terms with the enemy.”
Oriana sighed. “You’re giving my sister too much credit. She doesn’t think like that. She’s never thought like that.”
“The whys and whodunits are of no concern at this time,” Horace said. “This is another problem we’ll need to remedy when you take the crown.” He pushed himself away from the table. “Bastion knows I’m here and will be expecting me. Stay here until I return, and keep yourself inconspicuous.”
“Yes, well, I don’t intend on letting people know I’ve returned,” Oriana said.
“They already know you’re here,” Jameson said. “It’s just best they don’t know where you are. Rumors of fire spread faster if you can’t see the flames.” He winked at her.
That wink—Oriana didn’t know if he was trying to be friendly, or if he was antagonizing her. She didn’t care which one it was. The former wouldn’t save him from the gulag.
BASTION SET his mug down and leaned against the railing for support. He lifted his leg and gingerly touched his ankle, felt all around the bones and tendons. Pulling and pushing and stabbing didn’t cause much pain, but as soon as he put pressure on it, he hissed in agony.
He lowered himself onto a wooden rocking chair, looking out over the latticed wall of the balcony. He took his mug and sipped the dry, strong ale.
Since arriving in Haeglin seven months ago, he’d come to find this balcony the quintessential place of relaxation and meditation. He went there when the malaise of anger turned his cheeks red and his clenched fists white.
On this morning, he was less angry and more at his wits’ end. His conversation with Gimble Rivace at the Peak had gone well. Gimble had agreed to admit publicly that he was the one who assassinated Maya Plommen, but that she was not the target—Olyssi was. Plorgus had turne
d him, he’d claim—he had fallen for the promise of riches and titles and land. In exchange, Bastion promised Gimble his freedom and a large monetary reward.
That was the last piece of good news Bastion had encountered. He’d met with Commander Jameson Jauren again, after securing Gimble’s promise. He told the commander to sow rumors that Oriana Gravendeer was an agent of Plorgus, that she was responsible for Gimble’s defection. It was a plausible rumor, if not convincing. Who better than Oriana to pry away a loyal and trusted Jackal?
There was just one problem with the rumor: it had competition. Gossip had spread that Oriana Gravendeer had returned to make a claim on the throne. Worse, people had begun inexplicably slandering Olyssi’s queenship, alleging she had manipulated the will of Raegon Gravendeer.
If Bastion put out word that Oriana was an agent of Plorgus, the reception would be unkind. It would look as if the crown had heard of the rumors and was attempting to quash them with falsehoods and deceit.
Disastrous as that was—Bastion’s inability to sow rumors of Oriana’s treason made pegging her as a traitor impossible—it was made all the worse by the fact that someone on the inside was undermining Bastion.
He rapped a finger on the roughly hewn table, pondering. Silently listing names. He came up with many, but most were too inept, apathetic, not crafty enough—people who could conceivably plot against Bastion, but plotting would be as far as they’d get.
Much like his thumbnail, which he chewed and bit and ripped, he whittled down his list to almost half a dozen possibilities: Horace Dewn, Jameson Jauren, Oriana Gravendeer, Olyssi Gravendeer, and the Jackals as a whole.
Horace might have pledged his loyalty to Bastion, but if he—
Bastion heard a click. He turned, watching the balcony doors slowly open inward.
“What a long excursion that was,” Horace said, standing in the doorway, expressionless.
“What a coincidence,” Bastion said. “I was just thinking of you.” He offered a weak smile.
Reign of Gods (Sorcery and Sin Book 2) Page 26