King's Blood

by Jill Williamson

  “What have you done with Grayson?” Trevn asked.

  “Gray son of Jhorn is not in Zuzaan,” the orange-haired giant said.

  “Wee badla wa pûm det!” the headman yelled at his translator. He picked up a bronze sword, which Trevn recognized as his own. “Etla way wee. Mah?”

  “You to make. How?”

  Trevn waved his hands in a slow arc, wiggling his fingers. “Magic.”

  This started a long discussion between the two giants, and even Toqto chimed in. Trevn understood nothing, so he gave Cadoc an update.

  “They wanted to know how we make swords. I told them magic.”

  The two giants continued to pelt Trevn with questions, but he answered nothing truthfully and continued to shoot his own questions back.

  Why eat beetles? Why enslave Puru? Where was Grayson? Had they always been so ugly?

  He received no answer but a glare to that last question. Finally he was dismissed, and Toqto led him to a chamber a few doors down. The golden-haired giant lifted a torch off a scone in the corridor, carried it inside, and lit a torch on the wall. Then he left, shutting Trevn inside.

  Trevn voiced Cadoc to assure him he was fine, then voiced Mielle, Wilek, and Saria to update each.

  “Don’t tell them about me,” Saria said.

  “I’m not going to tell them anything,” Trevn said.

  He examined the chamber. It was completely empty but for two overly long beds of furs in adjacent corners. Until his eyes caught sight of a worn leather satchel that Trevn knew in a glance had come from the Five Realms.

  He dumped its contents on the floor and surveyed the meager items. A ratty wool blanket, a threadbare tunic, a rusty knife, and a pair of boots with the toes cut off.

  Curious, Trevn reached out to Cadoc. “Why would anyone cut off the ends off their boots?” he asked.

  “Feet grow too fast,” Cadoc said. “Makes the boots last longer.”

  Pity welled in Trevn’s stomach. He thought of the orphans Mielle cared so deeply for. The months he’d spent on the ship had given him some idea of what it meant to be hungry, but he had eaten far better than most. He had no comprehension of what it meant to be so poor.

  He bent down and picked up the boot, turned it over, and examined the sole, where he found two holes worn through—one in the heel, a second in the middle of the pad. He wondered over the owner. Was this young man in the tunnels beneath the fortress this moment, gathering beetles?

  Where are you, boy? he wondered.

  His vision blurred and he found himself transported to a dark, smoky room, surrounded by pales. Shocked, he sat down on one of the beds, wondering if he might be looking out through the eyes of the satchel’s owner.

  An elderly pale woman handed a platter toward him. A man’s arm reached out to accept the food, and Trevn saw his dappled skin.

  “Grayson, son of Jhorn?” he asked and felt the man jump—the boy. “This is Sâr Trevn Hadar. You have the gift of mind-speak that Arman bestowed upon those with royal blood in their veins. Can you hear me?”

  The pale woman frowned and said something that Trevn didn’t understand.

  “Yes,” came a tentative reply. “I hear you, sir.”

  Trevn smiled. Finally something had gone right. “Excellent. I am pleased to know you, Grayson. We have much to discuss.”

  “Like what?”

  Where to even start? “You escaped somehow from the giants? My men and I are captives here, made to hunt beetles in underground tunnels.”

  “Are you in the tunnels now?”

  “No, actually. They brought me to a chamber upstairs where I found your satchel and old boots.”

  Trevn felt a thrill course through Grayson and lost the connection with his mind. His eyes had just refocused on the room around him when a person materialized not three steps from where Trevn sat—a bedraggled young man with dappled skin who was dressed in the leather and furs of the giants.

  Trevn yelped and clapped a hand over his heart. “How in sand’s sake did you do that?”

  “Sorry,” the young man said, fidgeting. “My magic is getting to be a habit. This was my room when I was here, so it’s easy to come back. I can’t believe a sâr found me. I should probably bow, yeah?” He bowed deeply, sweeping his arm across his waist.

  He was rail thin and had skin the color of ashes, mottled in at least three shades of gray. His hair was black and bound in a puffy tail at the back of his neck, similar to the way Trevn wore his own. His cheeks were coated in a downy layer of facial hair that had never seen a blade. The look on his face was joyful and childlike.

  “So you are Grayson, son of Jhorn?”

  “That’s right,” the young man said, sinking to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Though Jhorn is not my real father.”

  “Oh.” That was not what Wilek had told Trevn, but it was also not his business to refute. “You are truly eight years old?”

  “Uhh, never knew my day of birth. I’m nearly ten now, I think.”

  He looked closer to twenty. “I should inform you,” Trevn said to the boy’s mind, “a shadir is likely following me.”

  “Yes, he’s here,” Grayson said aloud, glancing over Trevn’s head. “A green slight. Looks a bit like a frog. I’ve never seen him before.”

  Trevn looked above him. Saw nothing. “You can see shadir?”

  “Oh yes. Ragaz isn’t here right now, so that’s good. He serves Master Fonu and has been following me for weeks.”

  Trevn was thankful for that much. “The giants wouldn’t tell me where you were.”

  “They didn’t know. When I heard Master Fonu wanted to capture me, I left.”

  “What role does Fonu Edekk play here? Tell me everything.”

  Grayson shared his story, which was like something from mythology. Secret magic, prophecies, kidnappings, a sea serpent, pirates, giants, pale slaves he called Puru. With all the boy had been through, it was a miracle he was still alive. Arman had truly been watching out for him.

  Fonu had not only compelled Randmuir Khal of the Omatta and Bolad mi Aru, he had compelled an army of twenty giants, which he’d taken south through the mountains for some mysterious purpose.

  “No ideas why?” Trevn asked.

  Grayson shook his head. “All I know is he compelled Randmuir the pirate captain to catch me and bring me to him.”

  “How did you teach the giants to speak Kinsman?”

  “It’s part of my magic. I can understand any language, which sort of made me a tutor.”

  “I would like to learn more about your magic,” Trevn said.

  “I’ll tell you all I know.” Grayson winced. “If you’ll teach me more about this magic in my head.”

  “We call it voicing or mind-speaking,” Trevn said. “Those with royal blood have the ability.”

  “But I don’t have royal blood.” He squirmed, uncertain. “Do I?”

  “Through your mother, yes.”

  His eyes popped. “You know my mother?”

  Trevn realized he might have overstepped. “Hold on to that question.” He reached for Wilek. “I have found Grayson—or he found me—and I let slip that his mother had royal blood. What can I tell him?”

  “I have no idea. I will summon Jhorn at once and find out.”

  Trevn distracted the boy with a lecture on the mind-speak ability, telling him about the different tricks he had discovered.

  “Will the shielding quiet the voices? There are always so many. I thought I might have broken my mind somehow by popping around too much.”

  The question puzzled Trevn. “I’ve never heard anyone’s voice without either trying to or when someone gifted speaks to me.” Though Kempe had overheard Shinn. Perhaps the traitor hadn’t shielded himself properly. Or maybe Kempe and Grayson were somehow more perceptive.

  Grayson’s brows pinched. “But none of the voices I heard were talking to me. I’m not surprised to be different. I’ve always been.”

  Trevn squeezed the young man’s s
houlder. “Don’t take it that way. Different is special. And being special is a blessing. I will teach you to shield your mind. Perhaps that will help with the voices you hear.”

  The young man lit up, smiling wide. “That would be great. Thanks.”

  “So, any ideas how someone without your special magic can get out of this place?”

  “Ulagan and me, we’ve been helping Puru slaves escape. Three boats so far, one each night, through an underground river. It goes all the way to the ocean. The boats hold about thirty Puru.”

  Hope swelled inside Trevn. “That’s wonderful. Do you think you could help me and my soldiers get out of here?”

  “Sure,” Grayson said. “I’ll just go ask Ulagan.”

  And he vanished.

  Hinck

  What the natives called the Shelosh Islands, King Barthel had renamed Islah after his first wife. It had been a beautiful jungle when the Amarnath and its pirated fleet had landed several months ago. It now resembled a military training camp. Hinck stood at the back of the practice field, watching his archers miss their targets. Adjacent to him Harton Sonber was running native slavs through a sword-training exercise.

  Rogedoth was building an army.

  He had originally planned to take New Sarikar from his nephew with mantics alone, but once he learned that the evenroot grown here produced no magic, he sought a secondary plan. Despite the vast stores of the magical substance he had brought across the Northsea, it would not last forever, and he was unwilling to waste it all defeating New Sarikar, then have nothing left for Armania.

  But building an army was not without problems. He had no soldiers besides a handful of personal guards. His lone military asset, Harton Sonber, Rosâr Wilek’s ex-shield, had been made general. While Harton had no combat experience beyond small skirmishes to protect his charge, his training in Armanian camps made up for his lack of experience. He knew everything there was to know about Armanian military practices—in theory. But theory was enough to set Rogedoth’s plan in motion. At Harton’s urging he built an infantry of enslaved natives, compelling all to obey. This infantry would be used to weaken the armies of New Sarikar and Armania so that Rogedoth would not have to exhaust his evenroot stores once he joined the battle.

  Harton also convinced Rogedoth to abandon plans to mine for metal to forge swords and instead produce enormous quantities of bows and arrows. Harton believed that focusing on ranged weapons was the only way to pit such weak and untrained infantry against seasoned soldiers.

  Hinck, who had never been good with a bow, had, insanely, been put in charge of training the native slavs to shoot. As he had been known as one of the worst archers to grace the Five Realms in the past decade, his charges were not exactly advancing in skill at the rate Rogedoth demanded—not that he was trying very hard. Poor archers would only help Armania’s chances, but the dismal results often left Hinck feeling the false king’s wrath. So when the summons from Rogedoth boomed in Hinck’s head—“Come to the throne house”—he was unsurprised, expecting yet another lecture.

  Hinck’s fear over Rogedoth learning he had the ability to use the mind-speak magic had subsided when Rogedoth discovered that a gifted man could speak to the non-gifted. He now ordered everyone around without audibly speaking a word, so Hinck conveniently managed to start hearing the man along with everyone else.

  He had also been able to eavesdrop, for a little while anyway, which had been terribly convenient. Eventually, Rogedoth discovered the concept of shielding, which Hinck believed he’d learned from Sir Kamran DanSâr, though he had no proof. Interestingly enough, Rogedoth kept this new skill to himself, which amused Hinck. So both Rogedoth and Hinck had the ability to listen in on the minds of those around them. Better yet, Rogedoth wasn’t very proficient at shielding, especially when he was speaking to another, and Hinck was often able to pick up entire conversations to pass along to Wilek and Trevn.

  Curious if Rogedoth meant to lecture him for his incompetent archers again, Hinck concentrated on the man’s thoughts and found his shields down.

  “Mattenelle is too much a fool to betray me. Zenobia might, if she wished to make her son Kamran king. It wouldn’t be Laviel or Jemesha. Eudora’s compulsion wouldn’t allow it. Then who?”

  Hinck leaned against the bow rack, set his feet well, and risked a quick glimpse through Rogedoth’s eyes—another trick Trevn had taught him.

  The self-made king was pacing between his throne and his mantics, who were lined up before him. Rogedoth suspected one of his most trusted adherents of treason? The options were plentiful. The man could have a mutiny on his hands any day, yet Hinck’s stomach clenched at the idea that he might be the one to be found out.

  He left the practice field and walked through the camp to Rogedoth’s fortress of reeds, dwelling on his most recent list of transgressions. Trevn had asked for information on Fonu and his army of giants, so Hinck had been eavesdropping on everyone—he was a spy, after all. Likely the best spy in the history of mankind. What spy had ever been able to gather so much intelligence without even leaving his bed? Hinck could flit from Rogedoth’s thoughts to Rosârah Laviel to Eudora to the servant who came in each morning to tend his fire. Anyone. It was an incredible magic, though he found it could be just as tedious. He quickly became sickened by the lewd things that occupied the minds of certain individuals and wearied by the tedium of minds that were nearly empty of thought altogether or that flitted from one idea to another like a bee in a garden of flowers.

  Lady Eudora, for example, whose every movement and word had once captivated Hinck. Beyond the horror of her compulsion to obey Rogedoth, all she thought about was herself. Her own beauty. What she would wear. She must always be the most beautiful person present, hated any woman who drew attention away from her, and actively sought reasons to malign such competition with real or invented gossip or simply send them elsewhere.

  One constant victim of Eudora’s libel was Lady Mattenelle, who had become Hinck’s only real friend in this place. Hinck had been shocked to find the mind of this gorgeous creature nearly vacant. He had lost count of how many times he’d listened in on Nellie’s thoughts to find her thinking nonsense words. Sometimes humming a tune. Beauty distracted her, be it nature, gowns or jewels, architecture, an impressive horse, a man she found attractive, or a hot meal when she was hungry. When her eyes locked on such things, they ensnared her thoughts, rendering her quite useless.

  The practice of eavesdropping had not been an entire waste of time, however. He had once caught Rogedoth voicing with Fonu about his compulsion on giants. Rogedoth wanted Fonu to encourage the giants to raid the smaller settlements on the outskirts of New Sarikar, and Trevn verified that very thing had been taking place for months.

  Hinck had also discovered that Rosârah Laviel and Princess Jemesha were plotting against Rogedoth. Hinck hadn’t believed it at first. Why would the man’s own daughter work against him? But Rogedoth had made a mistake in handling Janek’s situation. Rosârah Laviel had been pleading with the man ever since they’d left Everton to bring her son aboard the Amarnath. He had not prioritized this, and deep down she blamed him, both for Janek’s death and for not destroying Armania the moment they’d learned her son had been killed.

  Princess Jemesha and her husband, Zeteo, had always wanted their daughter to marry Janek, and when Rogedoth had claimed Eudora as his own bride, Jemesha had been horrified. She had kept all this inside, of course, until Laviel confessed her lack of confidence in the man. After that the two women had started stealing away evenroot for their eventual escape or attack—they still hadn’t decided which they would choose.

  Then there were the shadir. While Hinck couldn’t listen to their thoughts, because of Oli’s spell he could still see and hear them when they were nearby. This had taught Hinck much about the nature of these creatures. They did not like humans. They used them—fed off them in many ways.

  Being able to see shadir when they thought no one was looking . . . it gave Hinck a ch
ance to study them, and doing so stripped away all their mystery. They were demons, nothing more.

  Hinck reached the throne house. He had barely stepped foot inside when Rogedoth was in his head.

  “Come and join the ranks, Lord Dacre.”

  The line of mantics and malleants arced out from each side of the throne like a claw about to draw Hinck into its grasp. His gaze locked with Nellie’s, and her bloodshot eyes about made his knees buckle.

  Looked like trouble.

  Somehow Hinck managed to cross the room and take position at the end of the row beside Lilou Caridod.

  “Someone is betraying me,” Rogedoth said. “Confess now, and I will let you live.”

  No one answered. Hinck adopted the posture of Harton, staring straight ahead like a soldier. He sensed a presence in his head and checked the shields around his mind. They were solid, as always.

  “If you know anything,” Rogedoth said, “tell me and you will be rewarded.”

  Hinck knew plenty, but he wasn’t about to say anything. He was tempted to listen in on Laviel or Jemesha’s minds to see if they were worried they’d been caught, but it seemed too risky at present.

  “Lord Dacre sees the shadir yet takes no evenroot,” Rosârah Laviel said.

  Hinck jerked his head toward the former queen.

  “He somehow blocks off his thoughts as well,” she added. “He is the only person on the island I cannot listen in on, and I also heard him ask Lady Mattenelle about Master Fonu and the giants.”

  She would betray him? Hinck couldn’t let her get away with that.

  “Rosârah Laviel steals your evenroot,” he said.

  She gasped. “Liar!”

  Hinck looked to Rogedoth, expecting an expression of shock and betrayal. Instead, he found only sternness in the man, directed toward himself.

  “We will deal with Laviel’s accusation first, Lord Dacre,” Rogedoth said. “I too have noticed the fortress of your mind. Step forward and defend yourself.”

  Alarmed, Hinck walked to the center of the half circle and faced Rogedoth. “I don’t know why you cannot hear my thoughts, Your Highness. I take evenroot when it is asked of me, but I am no mantic and hate to waste such a precious resource for the rush it gives.”