by R. J. Larson
Caitria frowned at her fragile tunic and reached for her mantle. Ela draped Caitria’s mantle around her shoulders, taking enough time to whisper, “Where are the king’s daggers?”
Hushed as a breath, Caitria replied, “I buried them while you slept.” Raising her voice she said, “Thank you, Lady Aeyrievale. I believe we’re ready. Lead us, Mari, please.”
As Ela turned, the branch took shape, gleaming pale blue-white in her clenched hands.
Mari gasped, stared, then fled their chamber.
Caitria raised an eyebrow at Ela. “I hope you have the same effect upon the king.”
In the depths of the kitchen’s root cellar, Akabe dumped more dirt over the Atean’s body. Not the way he’d expected to spend this afternoon. Beside him, Kien added another shovel-full of soil, tamped down the heap, and scowled in the dim light. “I can’t believe he swallowed that cloth! If he hadn’t driven himself into such a frenzy, he would have lived.”
“Just long enough to betray us when his fellow killers arrive.”
Kien exhaled. “It’s been three nights of cold food and waiting. Everything’s ready. Those traitors should have arrived by now, unless the Council learned of their plans and arrested them all. I can’t help wondering . . . why haven’t we heard from the Council? Or from your men? We should have by now.”
Akabe hefted a final scoop of loosened soil from the cellar’s broken clay floor. “Perhaps they’re lost in the hills. It’s happened before.” That scenario was better than his alternate theory, involving the assassins finding and killing the Royal Council’s messengers and soldiers. Along with his royal advisors and all the workmen at the temple site—including Dan Roeh.
Infinite, save us all!
Muted footsteps overhead made them both look up, toward the cellar door. Riddig Tyne descended the ladder and closed the door with such noiseless care that Akabe stilled.
The assassins had arrived.
Staring up at the single razor-thin break of light showing through the cellar door, Akabe slid the sword off his back and waited in the near darkness. Beside him, Kien and Riddig quietly readied their weapons.
His gaze fixed on the cellar door, Akabe prayed.
27
Gripping his sword’s hilt, Akabe tensed as someone clattered through the kitchen above. If the intruder was the least bit observant, they’d find the cellar door.
Infinite, please, let them fall for the ruse!
The clattering stopped as a deep, exultant voice boomed through the kitchen. “Uzleon, hurry! We have the proof—let’s be gone before we’re turned to dust. This place is cursed!”
From just above the root cellar door, a man answered, “Yes, yes, I’m coming. I’d hoped to find some extra food.”
“Don’t waste your time,” the loud one bellowed. “I’d eat worms first! The food here is likely poisoned, and that cursed destroyer won’t be soothed, so come on—we’re leaving.”
Uzleon growled audibly. “Go ahead. I’ll hurry.” After a short silence, then more scraping and thuds above, the root cellar door opened, silent on its freshly oiled hinges.
Sweat lifted over Akabe’s skin as he waited for the man to yell to his comrades. Instead, Uzleon sniffed the air, tapped the ladder with his sword, then clambered down the rungs. Riddig was on the fool in a blink, stifling him and clubbing him with the flat of a metal axe. Even as the man fell, Akabe hurried up the rungs and quietly closed the root cellar door.
Together, they gagged the unconscious man and tied his hands and feet. While Akabe wrenched the knots tight, voices echoed through the kitchen. “Uzleon? Uzleon! Where are you?”
“Curse the man!” the now-familiar big voice boomed. “He said he’d be out directly.”
Someone flung something metallic—Akabe heard it ringing across the kitchen as a second man roared, “Uzleon, we’re leaving before we lose our horses! That destroyer’s turned vicious! Make your own way home!”
At Akabe’s feet, the hapless Uzleon stirred to consciousness. Riddig clouted him again, and the soldier stilled. Akabe pressed his fingertips to the man’s throat and waited. Uzleon’s pulse faded. Akabe sighed. He should have told Riddig to spare the man for questioning. His skin crawling with unease, Akabe waited for the next disaster. At last a destroyer’s rumbling vibrated through the walls, accompanied by a telltale hoof-thud. Kien muttered, “Scythe’s calling us. They must be gone.”
Riddig Tyne grunted. “Seems they were taken by the hoax, sirs.”
His voice indignant, Kien protested, “Hoax? As if my inspiration was a con’s trick!”
Akabe hushed them. “It was a brilliant plan, sirs, so let’s not argue. I want to see what evidence those Ateans considered to be the best proof of our deaths.”
Weapons readied, Akabe abandoned Uzleon’s body and led his friends through the silent kitchen and the narrow stone passage, then into the keep’s great hall. Empty. Except for the evidence. Good. Akabe hurried to inspect their death scene. He and Kien had traded grim jokes while sweeping the area clean of their boot prints, then selecting the skeletons most like themselves and arranging them on the hall’s tiles before garnishing the death scene with ashes sifted from the hall’s central hearth.
Riddig had abandoned keeping watch just long enough to critique their work and to add his silver royal military-surgeon insignia to “his” skeleton. Now, Akabe noted, Riddig’s insignia was gone. As was Kien’s sacrificed dagger, a signet, and Akabe’s most ornate and recognizable sword and ring—with various coins and some clasps they’d removed from their clothes.
Halting just beside Akabe, Kien rubbed a hand over his stubbly dark beard, looking rueful. “I was hoping they wouldn’t steal all the clasps—we’re now a savage trio.”
Akabe ran his knuckles through his own beard. “Soon no one will recognize me if they stare me in the face.” He studied the skeletons. “These ought to remain here, untouched. We’ll continue to take turns keeping watch and praying our wives return soon.”
Riddig heaved a sigh of mingled relief and concern. “I wonder how long it’ll be before searchers come after that Uzleon fellow.”
Sheathing his Azurnite sword, Kien crouched on the stones near the hall’s central hearth, brooding over their death scene. “Yes. And I wonder how long it will take those Ateans to realize they didn’t see our wives’ skeletons near ours.”
Indeed. But of course, thankfully, there’d been no women’s skeletons. Akabe frowned, pondering an equally troubling possibility. If the Ateans should meet the rogue who’d escaped Scythe three nights past, they’d all no doubt exchange stories and realize they’d been duped. Sliding his sword into its scabbard, Akabe shrugged. “At least this ploy bought us some time.”
A low, vibrant rumble coursed through the air, beckoning them all to the tower’s entrance. Scythe loomed in the yard, chewing a mouthful of twigs and eyeing Akabe balefully.
Was the beast blaming him for the commotion? Well-enough. Akabe couldn’t fault the monster. Unable to resist some destroyer-gibing, Akabe asked, “Have you cleared the yard, Master Scythe? Rest assured, I’ll be inspecting your work soon.”
Scythe huffed and turned his rump toward the king, almost making Akabe smile.
Kien grinned. “I’d best take him for a run.”
“I’ll return to watch duty,” Riddig said.
Akabe nodded at his friends. “Good. I’ll check to see if they stole our food.” And, now that they’d survived, he might spend some time optimistically praying. Infinite? Let Caitria and Ela return! Send word from the Royal Council—and speed those reinforcement guards to us before the Atean assassins return!
Fighting giddiness as two eunuchs shouldered her golden chair, Ela clutched the branch and fixed her gaze on Caitria, who sat stiff-backed as a doll in her own gilded seat. She could imagine what Caitria was thinking. Ela guessed her own thoughts were much like the young queen’s. Fury. Distress. And longing for her husband.
Was Caitria appealing to the Infinite for sa
fety? What a relief—a joy—that she now trusted Him. Eyes wide open, Ela prayed to her beloved Creator. Give me courage! With strength enough to accomplish whatever task You might command of me this evening . . . I beg You!
I am here.
“Thank You!” She relaxed in the chair, blessing Him. Loving His voice—His presence.
The corridor ended at a gilded gate, guarded by three big armor-clad female guards who glowered at Ela as if they believed her to be living poison. Yet they nodded her eunuch porters through. Beyond the sparkling gate, a short passageway opened into a magnificent room of blue and gold marble, its walls lined with gold-cushioned benches. A place where multitudes of people might sit and wait for an audience with their god-king.
Ela swallowed hard as the eunuchs lowered her chair to the floor, causing her to sway, making her queasy again. Supporting herself with the branch, she stood, still exhausted despite the nap. The instant she and Caitria stepped away, the porters lifted the chairs and departed without a word or a glance.
Still watching Ela, female guards shut the gate, locking Ela and Caitria inside the blue-and-gold room. Caitria sidled near. “What now?”
“We wait, Majesty.”
“I feel nothing like a ‘Majesty.’”
Another soft-faced eunuch emerged through a concealed door that opened in a far wall, his hulking form clad in gold robes and wafting dignity like a perfume. He bowed to Ela and Caitria, beckoning them in a delicate, girlish voice. “Ladies?”
As they crossed the golden receiving area, Caitria whispered to Ela, “Why do so many of the king’s men sound like that? It’s—”
Ela tweaked the queen’s sleeve, murmuring, “They’re eunuchs.”
“Truly?” Caitria gasped like a shocked child. “I’ve read about them, but . . .” She swallowed and gazed at the eunuch with pity.
Ela understood the queen’s reaction. Neither Siphra nor the Tracelands kept slaves or eunuchs.
Imperturbably calm, the big man bowed them through the doorway. As they entered a huge golden chamber, he bowed once more, then departed, closing the door softly. Leaving Ela and Caitria with Bel-Tygeon. In his bedchamber. Infinite!
Ela halted her impulse to run.
The king, who’d evidently been pacing and reading letters, flung aside a parchment and strode toward Ela and Caitria, his gold-embroidered yellow robes flaring. Bel-Tygeon seemed arrogant as ever, but younger than Ela had realized. And even more handsome than she’d remembered from Parne.
His thick black hair gleamed in the evening light, and his dark eyes burned with such ferocity that she nearly stepped back. A scowl hardened his perfectly sculpted face, and he pointed at Ela as if he wanted to doom her forever. “You are pregnant! Don’t deny it—the physician recognized the signs. It’s annoying enough as it is to heed the words of a female prophet, much less trust one who is pregnant!”
What? Ela stared at the king, too shocked to speak. Pregnant? No! But . . . pregnancy might explain the physician’s odd reaction and . . . certain symptoms. . . .
Stunned, Ela appealed to her Creator. Infinite? Am I?
Yes.
Oh no! And yet . . . Aware of Bel-Tygeon’s unrelenting glare and Caitria’s openmouthed surprise, Ela sucked in a breath. As Kien would say, steady. She clenched the branch and looked the furious king in the eyes. “It’s not my words you should trust, O king, but the Infinite’s. Furthermore, if I am pregnant, it’s my husband’s concern and mine—not yours!”
“There, you are wrong!” Bel-Tygeon stood almost toe to toe with her now, smugness lessening his indignation. “As my slave, you have no husband! You and your child are mine by law. You are my belongings!”
“Then it’s a vile law! Who are you to defy what the Infinite has ordained? You, Bel-Tygeon, are no god!”
The king’s aristocratic nostrils flared and his upper lip curved in contempt. “So you say, Prophet. But where is your Infinite now, when you are powerless and under my rule?”
“He rules from His throne, but you do not! And your estimation of your own power will swiftly diminish.”
Bel-Tygeon leaned so near that she could feel his breath warm against her cheek. The fragrance of rich spices surrounded her as he murmured, “Is that a threat from my prophet?”
“It’s the truth. And I am not your prophet!” She shifted the branch, reminding herself not to wallop the god-king. How dare he smile so! Quietly, she warned, “You were determined to bring me here against my will—so here I am! You’ll regret your decision. However, if you believe Belaal requires a true prophet, the Infinite might consent to your wish.”
Infinite? Truly?
Yes.
Ela went sick inside. How long would she serve in Belaal? Yet she knew the answer: as long as the Infinite required—even to the day of her death. But what about the baby? Kien’s baby . . .
Controlling herself, Ela continued. “The Infinite warns that your kingdom is diseased, and He will take you apart—body and spirit—until you acknowledge His Holy Name!”
“When?” The king stepped back, lifting his hands in a mockery of astonishment. “Where is your Infinite to challenge me?”
“He is here. Watching you.” Fresh tendrils of light seeped from the branch. Bel-Tygeon lowered his hands and studied the glowing vinewood like a man suspecting some trick. Ela planted the precious insignia between them. “This is the truth, Majesty. You are no god. Almost one hundred of your men perished because they defied the Infinite and threatened evil against me, and you are no better than they were! Our Creator threw you into the dust at Parne, remember? Now, to bring you to understanding, for your own sake and Belaal’s—to the glory of His Name—He will humble you again. This time in your own realm.”
Bel-Tygeon laughed, and his smile was dazzling despite his contempt. “Let Him try! Parne was a mere windstorm!” Then the radiant grin faded, replaced by sudden severity. “I’ve been threatened by myriad foreign priests and prophets swearing retribution from their gods. Your Infinite is nothing to me!” He lifted his chin. “The only reason I’ll endure you, Prophet, is that you predicted what would happen in Parne. You have the gift of divination that my prophets lack. Therefore, I swear now, for as long as I say and until you fail me, you are my prophet, my slave! You will prophesy my victories and proclaim the downfall of other lands—as you declared Parne’s.”
“I will not.” Ela looked from the king’s too-attractive face to the glowing branch. Why was he obsessed with her foretelling his victories? Had his resolve or his armies been weakened enough that he needed some spiritual reassurance before planning another war? Perhaps.
Infinite, let Belaal be too weakened to risk a war with Siphra!
Ela frowned at the cold-eyed king. “If you don’t heed Him, then everything you know, all that you possess, will be removed for your own sake. Your Creator is that concerned for you!”
For one heartbeat, Bel-Tygeon seemed to reconsider. To heed her warning. But then he raised a hand and turned away from the branch. “We shall see. Until then, you are my slave. As is your child.” He grinned at Caitria now, sweeping her with such an appraising look that she blushed. “You are Akabe of Siphra’s wife? I see why he resisted his beliefs to marry you.”
Caitria lifted her chin. “He married me to acquire sacred land for the Infinite’s temple. But never mind that. Where is my armband? And Lady Aeyrievale’s?”
“Your wedding trinkets?” The king crossed the room to his desk and picked up the bands. “Take them.” He tossed the marriage symbols at Caitria’s feet. “They mean nothing in Belaal.”
The blush deepened over Caitria’s face. Ela guessed by the tense line of the young queen’s mouth that she was fighting to suppress her temper. As Ela retrieved the bands and cautiously stood again, Caitria said, “Perhaps they mean nothing to you or to Belaal, sir, but Lady Aeyrievale and I treasure them—as we cherish our husbands.”
“I remind you both that you have no husbands. In my palaces, my slaves are not allowed
marriage. However . . .” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Belaal has never captured a foreign queen. Interesting. Tell me . . . where is Siphra’s king?”
As Caitria’s beautiful face hardened in unspoken defiance, the Infinite’s warning whisked through Ela’s thoughts, making her jump. When Bel-Tygeon eyed her, she said, “Sir, Siphra’s king is not your concern. What’s more, your Creator declares that if you or your men enter Siphra now, you will die. And your royal dynasty will end.”
For a long instant Belaal’s king stared at her, clearly assessing her warning and possible intent. Quietly, he said, “I will deal with Siphra’s upstart king when I please. For now . . .” He smiled at Caitria. “What should happen to you, Lady of Siphra? Imprisonment? Ransom?”
Paling, Caitria said, “I’m a divisive queen—hardly worth ransoming.”
Bel-Tygeon lifted a lock of her soft brown hair, smoothing it between his fingers before allowing it to fall. “Then I’ll keep you.” His tone insinuated far more than mere keeping.
Ela tilted the still-glowing branch, using it like a sword to divide the air between the young king and Siphra’s queen. “She is not yours.”
Bel-Tygeon shot her a killing look. “Prophet, you overstep!”
Did she? Ha. Arrogant, spoiled young man! Fury forced her to speak through gritted teeth. “You overstep, sir, and the sooner you realize your mortal failings, the better for you and your people!”
He swept one long, powerful hand toward the branch to snatch it. Light flared and a sizzling noise cut through the air as his fingers passed through the vinewood. Caitria gasped and stumbled backward. Sparks hissed past Bel-Tygeon’s shimmering black hair. For an instant he looked as shocked as a boy unexpectedly scolded by his father. Ela softened her tone. “If you test your Creator, O king, you’ll fail. Please abandon your pride and listen. Your Creator calls to you.”