Seven servants walked through the arched doorway, each balancing a silver plate on which an empty crystal goblet stood.
“Where’s O’Keefe?” Raegon asked. “Ah, there you are. Gone for a piss?”
“Lord O’Keefe!” Gimble blurted as the two smashed into one another. “My apologies. My eyes were… elsewhere. Are you all right?” With a curious placement of his hands on Maren’s waist, the guardsman apologized again.
“I’m fine,” Maren snapped, shrugging himself away from Gimble. He had an unsavory look to his face as he strode back to his seat.
“What’s this?” Maren asked, eyeing the goblet and golden plate as he sat.
“Soon it’ll be Sunset Frost,” Raegon said. “You’ll go to bed a happy boy tonight, believe you me.”
Bastion picked apart the remains of stubborn clung-on meat from his duck breast. “You’ll go to bed happy but wake up breathing fire like a fucking dragon.”
Raegon howled with laughter. “Spoken like a man who’s sucked down a Sunset Frost or two.”
“Or nine or ten,” Bastion remarked, grinning.
“Well, let’s have it.” Raegon clapped Yvondre and his servants to attention.
Cupbearers belonging to each banner arose from their seats at the edges of the room and took a stand near their respective lord or lady, cup in hand. Before each ingredient of Sunset Fire was poured into the goblets, the cupbearers tasted the liquor and the juices and the fruits and the peppers, even the cream. When none of them choked, bled from their ears, or otherwise keeled over, they excused themselves to their seats.
The Sunset Fires were prepared one at a time, beginning with a servant taking a goblet and turning it upside down to show that no poison or other insidious substance lay inside. Then the liquor was poured, colorings squeezed in, and the drink was made.
“Listen here,” Raegon said, spittle flying from his mouth. “You take this damned thing to the face, and you don’t come up for air till you’re done. Else”—he waved a hand about—“well, shit, I don’t know. Else, you’re a goddamned coward, how’s that? Now, drink, you fools.”
Goblets were lifted, tilted, and poured down eager throats.
“Hoo!” Raegon belched, slamming the goblet down. “Now that’ll kick the shit outta ya.” He gestured to Farris Torbinen and added, “Quite literally, huh? Maren, you all right over there?”
Maren O’Keefe was breathing out of an open mouth and wiping his wet eyes. “Fine”—he coughed—“fine. Thank you.”
Raegon snorted. “A fine night, gentlemen. And ladies.” He nodded at Farris and his daughters. “Tomorrow I wish for us—” He clutched his stomach, grimacing. “Sorry, Sunset Frost is tryin’ to come back up, I think. I wish for us to hold court tomorrow. It—”
Olyssi kicked herself back away from the table and jumped to her feet. “Father. Are you okay?”
Raegon’s complexion turned ruddy. A foamy dribble of spit leaked from the corner of his mouth into his beard. He wiped it away and continued. “A smidgen much tonight, that’s all. You forget you’re getting old and your body’ll kick you, give you a little reminder.” As he spoke, he faced the tablecloth, as if speaking to the half-eaten plates and bowls of cold soup.
Oriana was standing now, along with Bastion and Farris.
Raegon motioned for his throat. “Feels like—” He grunted and doubled over. “Like a fire inside me. I can’t…” He vomited blood the color of strong coffee.
“Father!” Oriana cried. She bounded toward the head of the table, throwing aside chairs.
Raegon vomited again, this time into his cupped hands. It puddled there, then flowed over and between his fingers. It’d splashed into his beard and onto the tablecloth. A droplet had even managed to fling itself into Farris’s Torbinen’s leek soup.
The king of Haeglin’s head fell listlessly, his chin driving into his chest. He wobbled, slinging blood onto Bastion as his hand swam for something, anything to grasp on to—the back of his chair, the corner of the table, just… something to keep him standing. It wouldn’t keep him alive; he knew the poison had already boiled his innards, but dammit, he would die with dignity.
But he soon discovered dignity is the first thing Death strips from you.
He looked up one final time. His eyes found Olyssi, then they rolled till only the whites were visible. He collapsed onto the Great Table, smacked his forehead on a plate, then crumpled to the floor.
“Seal the exits!” Olyssi shouted. “No one in this room leaves.”
Oriana dropped to her knees. She backhanded a droopy corner of the tablecloth, covering her father’s face. When it didn’t cooperate, she balled it in her first, stood up and yanked. Dishes and cutlery clattered and toppled into one another, spilling juices and broth and cold meat onto laps and into beards and done-up hairdos.
“Get Savant Freda, now,” Oriana ordered, her voice underscored with a sense of urgency but steeled with the coolness of a born leader.
Jackals scattered this way and that, unsure of who to take orders from. Gimble Rivace took a cohort of guards and barked out placements. He told them that no one entered or left without his or Olyssi’s approval. Then he added, “Or Oriana’s.”
Bastion had backed away from the table. His personal guard swarmed him—a scene that repeated itself for Farris Torbinen and Emmil Wrokklen. Maren O’Keefe was still sitting, eyes fixed at the empty seat of Raegon Gravendeer. The few men who’d accompanied him from Valios gathered by, hands on the hilts of their swords.
“The reeve,” Olyssi said quietly. Then with greater insistence, “The reeve! I want the reeve here, now!”
“You heard her,” Gimble shouted. “Wake the old bastard up. Get!”
Two guards sprinted for the exit.
“Tell him to bring my father’s will,” Olyssi ordered.
One of the guards looked back, his face pale and his eyes wide. He jerked his head down, too nervous and too out-of-his-mind scared to remember how to properly nod.
“Stay with me,” Oriana whispered to her father. She had her fingers coiled beneath the neck of his tunic. “Stay with me.” She shook him. “Dammit, stay with me!” Another shake. And a third, this one violent.
“No,” she said. “No… no.” She wept. Tears fell down her cheek, into her mouth. Onto her father’s face that was as red as a blistered infection. “Nooooo!” she screeched, her eyes closed, mouth whimpering.
Olyssi came to her side. She pried her father’s goblet from beneath the crook of his knee where he’d fallen on it. She sniffed the rim. She twirled the cup slowly in her hands.
Oriana finally opened her wet, inflamed eyes. She had her father’s blood on her knuckles. His spit too; they’d become one and the same.
“Paste,” Olyssi told her, wiping a flap of tablecloth along the inside of the goblet. She showed her sister the congealed creamy paste she’d rubbed off.
“Ca’leous,” Oriana said, the word tumbling from her mouth like a gasped breath.
Olyssi reached up with the goblet and slammed it onto the table. She used the momentum to lift herself to her feet. The room fell quiet of its hushes and murmurs and gossiping.
“You,” Olyssi snarled, thrusting a finger at Maren O’Keefe.
Maren made no move. Expressed nothing.
“You… murderer.”
“Olyssi,” Oriana said, touching her sister’s elbow.
Olyssi brushed away Oriana’s concerns. “He left the table and only returned when the goblets were placed.” With a swing of her arm, she pointed to everyone in the room. “You all saw him!”
“I took a piss,” Maren said, a clear sense of anger rising into his reddened cheeks. “You accuse me of poisoning the king? Choose your words carefully, Olyssi Gravendeer. I came here to negotiate trade deals on behalf of the Valiosian Council and—”
“There is no Valiosian Council,” Bastion said. “You disbanded it.”
Maren either couldn’t find the words to form a response, or—far more
likely—none existed.
“Send a crow to Valios,” Bastion said, trading glances between Farris and Emmil. “Or just wait. Either way, you’ll hear that the big, bad Raven sewed together plots within plots and captured Lavery Opsillian. You’ll hear Maren here found the evidence and, god of justice that he is, he captured my men—the very ones who took his king!—and he cut off their heads.
“He told his people the Valiosian Council conspired with me, and he cut off their heads too, and made himself King of the West. I envy a man with such an imagination.”
“Shovel your shit elsewhere, Bastion,” Maren said. He stood, kicking out his chair. “He tells it as it is. I am the king of Valios, temporarily.”
“And a king slayer!” Olyssi asserted.
“And a liar,” Bastion said.
Maren swiped a hand across the table, sending a bowl onto the marble floor. It shattered. “I applaud you. I do, Bastion. I really applaud you. Hell of a game you run. I don’t know what bird sang to you—I figured I had my fair share of whispers and traitors in Valios—but I do have evidence, and it’s damning evidence. Lavery Opsillian—King Lavery Opsillian—”
“Is not with the Rooks,” Olyssi interrupted. “I met him at Craw’s Hold three weeks ago, traveling with mercenaries known as the Eyes of Aleer. I almost rescued him. Ask my sister.”
She thought to push the point, claim she had Lavery here. But, no—she needed to save that card. He would be instrumental in giving her unprecedented control of the West. She knew that you didn’t need to sit on every throne to claim every crown; you simply needed to control those who did.
Oriana stared at an eager audience. She covered her father’s face with the tablecloth and stood. “They crossed paths, yes.”
“You sent him away,” Olyssi said. “And then cooked up this fantastical plot involving Bastion. I side with the Raven on this.” She looked at Farris. “And so should you, and you, Lord Emmil.”
Bastion smiled with the subtle lift of his brows. “Aven Klouth is not on your side. And you must know your spymaster isn’t either. In fact, he’s here as we speak, probably sitting in a hot bath, having grapes fed to him by eager whores. Maybe, Maren, you’re not as smart as you thought, hmm?”
“Search him,” Olyssi ordered. “Gimble, search him!”
Gimble approached Maren O’Keefe but backed away as Valiosian guardsmen presented him with sharp steel.
Olyssi giggled, in a mad sort of way. “Really? This is what you want? I don’t have any qualms about ordering my Jackals to kill your men. Tell them to back down.”
Maren gestured for his guards to do just that. “I’ve nothing to hide. Strip me if you want.”
“Milady!” barked a hoarse man limping into the Great Hall, two Jackals behind him. He was hunchbacked, liver-spotted and, sadly for everyone who didn’t suffer from partial blindness like himself, wore robes that terminated at his thighs. He held a trembling hand above his head, crinkly parchment in his fingers. “The king’s will, I have it here.”
“Read it,” Olyssi said.
As the reeve straightened out the document, Gimble ordered Maren to lift his arms so he could explore the pockets of his tunic.
The reeve cleared his throat. “In the event of my death, I, Raegon Gravendeer, grant my holdings and my titles to the following. I grant to my daughter, O—” The reeve paused. He squinted as if he’d read the king’s will many times before but now had come across something new. “I’m sorry,” he said, clearing his throat again. “I grant to my daughter, Olyssi Gravendeer, the queenship of Haeglin and the ladyship of the Gravendeer family. I grant—”
The reeve continued, but he had no audience. This was partially because no one cared about the remaining bits of the will, which contained boring, unappetizing titles and holdings, and partially because Gimble Rivace had produced a small, finger-sized vial from Maren O’Keefe’s pocket. A viscous cream was smeared along the insides.
“Bring that and him over here,” Olyssi said. Maren’s cohort moved to escort him, but Olyssi raised her hand. “No.”
“As she says,” Maren said weakly.
Gimble handed the vial to Olyssi. She uncorked it and stuck the tip of a tightly rolled-up napkin inside, swabbing the substance. “Ca’leous poison,” she said, wiping her thumb into the paste on the napkin. “Harmless to the skin, isn’t it, Maren? But can you tell me what happens if you swallow it?” She brought her thumb to Maren’s lips. “Even just a tiny, tiny bit?”
Maren creased his eyes and in a low voice said, “I did not kill your father.”
The silence in the Great Hall was such that the candles burning within crystal chandeliers above sounded like the snaps and cracks and hisses of an all-consuming forest fire.
“I am now the queen,” Olyssi said. “That means I am the judge. That means I am the decider of life and death.” She withdrew her crossbow, cocked it and stuck it under Maren’s chin. “Maren O’Keefe, I find you guilty.”
There was a click. And Olyssi smiled as blood splashed her face.
Chapter Twenty-One
Smoke billowed from the top of Haeglin’s keep. It was thick and white and endless; the black sky seemed to be sucking it in, dragging it up from the core of Avestas.
“What is that?” Lavery asked.
The man who broke the chains that bound both Lavery and Baern chewed on a piece of straw. He called himself Laythe. “A dead king,” he said.
“The king’s dead?”
Lavery looked to Baern for affirmation. The old man nodded somberly. “White smoke for the end of one reign, gray for the beginning of another.”
“Finish up,” Laythe said. “Leaving soon.”
Lavery nibbled on the small squash Laythe had given him. He wondered if he should trust this man. He had freed him and Baern, but… he seemed… well, Lavery couldn’t explain it. But he felt cold and empty and a little scared in Laythe’s presence.
The man said he’d come from an island. Or rather, the island—where the last Wraith Walkers had gathered—but that he himself was a sorcerer, not a Walker.
The Walkers had been watching over Lavery for a long time, and Laythe was tasked with trailing him.
Baern was skeptical of this at first, but Laythe conveyed a wealth of knowledge about the island and Wraith Walkers that seemed to convince the old man.
“I wonder where Elaya will go,” Lavery said.
“Far away,” Laythe said. “If she’s smart.”
Laythe had also freed the Eyes of Aleer, but only because Lavery had insisted. Though they were miscreants and had abducted him, Lavery felt death was too great a punishment. They had never hurt or threatened him, after all. In fact, he rather missed them and their banter; it was a side of humanity he hadn’t been exposed to in Valios, where he was expected to play the good, noble son, walk with proper cadence and speak with a sophisticated tongue.
I could be a mercenary, he thought. One who doesn’t kill people. I’d take riches and food from tyrants and give them to the poor.
A bolt of lightning struck in the distance. It hung in the sky for a moment, as if imprinted in the clouds.
“We’re leaving,” Laythe said.
Lavery didn’t move. Another fork of lightning, then a rumble of thunder. The storm seemed to linger over a manor, its buildings only visible when the white fire bolts lit up the sky.
“Jackals move quickly, don’t you know,” Baern said. “Much faster than your little legs. C’mon.”
Lavery’s head quested right, then left and back again as he attempted to better refine the hilltop manor. “I’ve seen that place before.” He tugged on Baern’s arm. “Those buildings, I’ve seen those exact buildings.”
“I would hope so,” the old man said. “A barn, silos and a couple squat cottages aren’t unique.”
“No,” Lavery insisted, “you don’t understand. Everything is—it’s exactly the way I saw it in my vision.”
Laythe turned, a wrinkle of concern on his forehead. “Wh
at vision?”
“A dragon came and it breathed fire. The whole world went up in flames, and all the coats of arms of Avestas dripped from the sky.” He chewed on his lip and looked at Laythe. “They were melting. It all started here, I swear it. The dragon came from here.”
“What is it?” Laythe asked.
“Oriana Gravendeer’s estate,” Baern said. “Took it as the gift for her eighteenth birthday.”
“Strange gift.”
“Strange girl. Where are you going?”
Laythe readjusted himself, aiming his nose toward the manor. He said nothing. Baern and Lavery watched him drift away for a while before the old man sighed and motioned to Lavery that they’d better catch up.
“I don’t know if we should go there,” Lavery cautioned.
“Does it feel wrong?” Baern asked.
The storm intensified, splashing the sky with radiant violet light. The earth trembled under Lavery’s feet. “It doesn’t feel very right.”
Adom leaned over in his saddle and whispered to Elaya. “Got ourselves a tracker.”
“I know. He’s been following us since we left.”
“Oh, lovely. Nice of you to mention it now.”
Elaya adjusted herself in the saddle. Haeglin had claimed to have the finest breeds of stallions and the most graceful mares, and that might be true, she thought, but their leatherworkers couldn’t cobble together a comfortable saddle to save their lives. Of course, she had stolen both it and the horse, so she couldn’t complain too much.
“He’s on foot and alone,” she said. “He’s harmless.”
Adom looked over his shoulder. “Smart’un too. Keeps far enough back that he bleeds in with the night. Till the moon gets him, anyways. Don’t you want to lop his head right off his shoulders?”
The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1) Page 22