“Please, take the horses to the stables.”
“What if someone steals them?” Kelu asked.
“No one will steal them,” I said. “Everything these people have brought here belongs to their king, and I intend to demonstrate that to them.”
The gray genet’s brows lifted. “Right. You think that’s going to work.”
I grinned without humor. “You’ll see.”
“Won’t they resent you for the imposition?” Carrington wondered.
“They’re not people of Troth, Doctor. They weren’t raised to the expectation of justice and equality. The elves have a duty—sacred work as custodians of a world free of demons—and as such we don’t have the luxury for the egalitarian concepts that have motivated humanity.”
“Oh, for Douglas and Du Roi,” Chester said, shaking his head. “What a debate we’d have at this moment.”
“We would, wouldn’t we?” I smiled at the idea. “Whatever the case. Either I’ll succeed or we’ll all be dead, and that won’t do, so… I shall have to succeed. Take the horses, and the drake, please.”
Almond nodded and looped the reins through her hands, guiding the first of the creatures toward the barracks. My request would also get the genets out of the wet, which pleased me. I hated to think of their distress.
Eyre and Chester drew apart to discuss the fire. They left me with the women, and with Amhric, who said in the Gift, “You mean to fight them.”
I leaned my cheek on the staff, eyes closed, feeling the water drizzle steadily past my spectacles and over the bridge of my nose. “It is the language they understand, love.”
His hand closed on my shoulder, gentle. “I’ll be here.”
“And I will need you,” I murmured before switching to Lit. “Ivy?”
“My dear.”
“Kiss me for luck?” I asked.
She sniffed. “Does this mean you’re about to do something ill-advised? Like try to duel your way to the kingship?”
I batted my lashes at her and she laughed. “Morgan!” And then, shocked. “Morgan? I was making a jest!”
“Kiss me,” I repeated. “For good luck.”
And she did, and she was warm while the rain around me was cold, and it was more than luck, it was life itself. It was a reminder of the life I longed to see on the other side of this. When she broke away, just enough that we could breathe, I brushed the tip of my cold nose against hers. “All will be well. Remember—I can’t die.”
“Unless they work at it,” she said dryly.
“They won’t be capable of it. And… I’ll need you and Chester.”
“Anything,” she said firmly.
“Then no one will stand against us.”
Almond was at my elbow. Almond was tugging at my sleeve, amazingly. Surprised, I looked down at her… and saw Emily.
“Emily!” I whispered. “Where did you come from?”
The Black Pearl was nearly indistinguishable from the gloom of the late day, just another smeared shadow in a world of them. Against the dark fur of her face, the luminous aquamarine eyes shone like stained glass. “We have been hiding in the rafters of the barracks since the elves came and the blood-flag of Sadar sealed the passage. Waiting for you, Master. What shall I tell the others?”
“Can you reach them?” I said.
“By going under the bridge,” she replied. “And past the dragonholt.”
Of course. “Tell them we’re here, and that we are about to claim the elves for our cause.” Her ears sagged and her brow furrowed. I touched her shoulder. “Tell Kemses. He’ll understand.”
“All right, Master,” she murmured, and vanished. I watched her go, and even though I had my eyes trained on her still I lost her to the shadows. Astonishing.
The bonfire ignited, burning wet fuel so that clouds of steam rolled off it with the tongues of spitting flames that burned against the falling rain. Eyre stood guard over it, and from the look of stern concentration on his face, it would remain lit until I no longer needed it. Joining me, Chester said, “I think it might be easier to clear the skies. Should I?”
“No,” I said. “Save your strength.”
He nodded and stood alongside Ivy, chin high. They both met my eyes, and I saw nothing there but love and determination. How could I fail with such helpmeets?
To Amhric, I said, “Now is the time. Shall I declare or you?”
“The King-Reclusive waits on his prince,” Amhric murmured.
I kissed his brow. “Then his prince will announce him.”
So saying, I took a step forward, out of the ring of my supporters. I remained ignored until I lifted my voice, and used magic to carry it out like a wave rushing up a shoreline. “I am gratified to see the nation of Serala come to serve its king.”
10
The patter of the rain and the hiss of the bonfire behind me filled the hollow space that followed my words. I let it while the elven host left off its work to turn toward me, a great rustling that penetrated even the low drumming of the water all around us. The tide drew back from me, as I expected it would. No one stepped into the void, so I called them.
“Where is the council of elders? The prince and his king are prepared to take the mantle from them.”
A whisper of sound now. People muttering, exclamations, interrogative murmurs that rose like the cries of distant birds and then cut off when they were hushed.
“Will not the heads of Suleris, Nudain, and Ekadet step forth? I believe last I checked, they comprised the council.”
Someone finally entered the cleared circle. Warily, glancing once at the bonfire tended by my grim human ally, because it looked like I’d created a dueling field.
Which I had.
“I am the head of blood-flag Nudain,” said this elf, a woman, slim and lean and nigh unto androgyny with it. Had she been a man once, and given it up to be an elven woman? Did it work in both directions? Perhaps there was no purpose in wondering: she was what she was now. The rain polished her skin, which shone like obsidian, and her hair was the color of tarnished silver. I had never noticed how many graduations of shade there were in tarnished silver.
She had a voice like a lark, or a flute, or both. Like the spring, but at night, when the earth is resting from the caress of the sun, and the scents are earthier and moister. I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill her.
“Tchanu,” Amhric said from behind me, just enough for me to hear.
“Tchanu,” I said. “Where are your peers? Where are the heads of Ekadet and Suleris? Do they not wish to be the first to give fealty to the first elven king since the death of Marne?”
Someone pushed through the wall of spectators. Another male, this one slim as a lance, with eyes like a hawk’s and a voice urgent as a clarion call to battle. “Has the king at last returned to us?” He looked past me, drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, but it is so, isn’t it? Who can fail to sense it?”
“Herithor,” Amhric murmured. “Was the heir to Aresset.”
And now the blood-flag. I didn’t know how I could tell, but I could feel it in my fingertips, in my throat as a taste, as a broadness in his power... which belonged to me, and which I could claim as easily as I could make a fist. “Aresset,” I said. “Well for you that you recognize it. But where—” I lifted my voice, sharpened it like a sword, “Are Suleris and Ekadet?”
A woman’s voice, finally, and my skin pebbled instantly. “I am Ekadet’s blood-flag.”
They made way for a woman, and at the sight of her I was overwhelmed with rage, for she’d been one of the voluptuaries I’d found abusing my brother in Suleris’s breeding compound.
“You,” she sneered, with every contempt… to Amhric, little realizing how close to death she was skirting by daring to address him, much less with such lack of respect. “What are you doing here, and not spilling your blood and seed for Suleris’s little projects?”
Only his touch stayed me, reminded me that I had work here, and it did not involve bloodshed—yet. It was
for me to choose my response carefully. The rain had eased, as if to listen more closely.
I said, “And here is the woman who could not even tell an elven prince masqueraded as a human, so eager was she to waste herself in debauchery.”
I had scored on her—the crowd knew it, and so did she, for her cheeks colored. She lifted her chin and replied, haughty, “You say that as if I didn’t know what I did, but I did. I knew an elf of royal gifts, and if he was too weak to hold me off then he was no king at all. And you! I have heard tell of you. Quite the actor you are. You say you are a prince? If you have the power you claim to, you would have come in force and taken what you wanted. But you didn’t, did you? You skulked, like the lowest slave. You hid behind a mask of human seeming.”
I chuckled. “If you seek to insult me, try harder.” I looked past her. “But where is your little ally in corruption? Where is the head of Suleris? Who replaced Thameis after I slew him? Was it Isis or Temeret? Or have they hidden themselves away from their prince, lest I finish what I began?”
“We rule together,” came a growl and there, at last, were the people I’d been waiting for. “And we rule here as well.”
“By what right?” I asked casually, rolling the staff between my fingertips.
“By right of force,” Temeret said.
I studied him, unhurried and unimpressed. Perhaps running Suleris didn’t agree with him, for he looked febrile and angry, an unhealthy glow shining on skin the rain seemed to slime. “Would you care to dispute that? Properly?”
“You,” Temeret snarled, “are nothing but bait. And I will gladly challenge you. We will all challenge you!”
I lifted my brows. “All of you, is that it?” I glanced at e Ekadet and visibly dismissed her. “You will follow Suleris wherever it takes you.” Ignoring her outraged gasp, I looked at Nudain and Aresset. “You, though. I think you know your king.”
“Always,” the blood-flag Aresset said, eyes fastened on Amhric.
I waited on Nudain, remembering the political map Thameis had deigned to explicate so very long ago in his study before he assaulted me. Here was the other major political force on the Archipelago—between Nudain and Suleris, I could account for almost all the land in Serala.
She looked first at Amhric, then at Suleris and Ekadet. Then met my eyes and said, “I know my king... if king he proves himself to be.”
“Then,” I said to Temeret, “You shall have your fight.”
“Excellent. Let us discuss the rules.”
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s discuss the rules. There will be no use of the genets. You will kill no human slaves either.”
“These rules are unfair!” Isis cried.
“These are the rules you will have, or you will have nothing,” I said. “But your prince is a fair man. In return for this small sacrifice—for it is small, yes? Surely you have power enough on your own to overwhelm one pathetic former slave—I will allow you to bring as many of your members to the ring to fight me as wish to.” My heart was racing. “At once.”
“Morgan,” Chester hissed, almost inaudibly.
“At once?” Isis asked, eyes narrowed. “What is the limit to this number?”
“There is no limit to this number,” I said. “If the entirety of the blood Suleris and Ekadet wishes to throw itself against me, let them come now, all at once. No line duels. No waiting. We will settle it in a single fight.”
“You are mad!” Temeret cried.
“If he is the prince,” Tchanu said, with that voice like nightingales, “then he is not mad. So... we shall see. Shan’t we.”
“I see that you are overcome with hubris,” Isis said. “We vanquished you once on the strand already. We would have killed you both on the coast of Kesina had e Sadar not arrived to succor you. Do you think to trick us into showing mercy? We will bring every member of our families to fight you! If you could not stand against two of us, how will you fare against two thousand?”
“E Suleris,” I said. “Try me and see.”
Temeret was staring at me, tense. His eyes darted to Amhric, and then the bonfire, and I could see his second thoughts in his gaze. But his sister cried, “So we shall! Only say when!”
“I give you half an hour,” I said. “Only because you will need it to plan how to fit so many of your members in such a small space.” I smiled without humor. “Start now.”
Isis stared at me, lips curled back from her teeth. Then she flung herself into the crowd, barking orders I was certain she thought would save her, and see her reinstated as the leader of the expedition. I watched her go, and Ekadet with her, and Temeret slinking away last.
Nudain approached me, quiet. I thought she was old; it was hard to tell with elves. She considered me, spoke at last. “I thought if I won enough of the Archipelago, I might replace a king.” She glanced past me at Amhric, then met my eyes. “I was wrong.”
“You did what you hoped was best,” I said, which was forgiveness indeed. She might have sought the rulership of Serala out of ambition, or to aggrandize her family. But she glowed to my sight, a softly banked glow, and I thought perhaps those darker motivations had mingled with an honest desire to see the warring of the exiled elves brought to a bloody halt. Best, I thought, to begin anew... if the elves allowed it. Some of them wouldn’t, but I would see that ended soon.
When Tchanu stepped away, my own converged on me.
“What did you say?” Ivy’s voice was tense and angry. “Chester’s gone pale. What did you say you’d do?”
Bless his wisdom, Chester said nothing. It was Almond who piped up then. “Mistress, it will be well. He is the prince.”
“What exactly is it he’s going to be well while doing?”
“I’m going to fight them,” I said to her. “All at once.” She folded her arms. I set one of my hands on her wrist. “Trust me. They won’t kill me.”
“How do you know?” Her voice was rough and soft, and I wanted to wrap myself in her and forget everything. But we were here and there was work to be done.
“Because,” I said. “The story can’t end here.”
She threw up her hands, exasperated, but I saw her fighting an unwilling smile and counted that a victory.
Drawing in a long breath I turned at last to Amhric. Resting the staff against my chest, I offered him both my hands. In the Gift, I said, “You will forgive me for what I am about to do?”
Amhric’s small fingers curled around my longer ones. He smiled a lopsided smile. “You will forgive me for making you do it?”
I laughed, sheepish, lowering my face. “My brother.”
“We are as God made us.” Amhric squeezed my hands. “And I love you, brother mine.”
So fortified, I returned to my position to wait.
Assembling all the elves Suleris and Ekadet had decided to throw against me took all the time I had given them, and a great deal of shuffling of people. I saw it as a rippling in the surrounding throng as the spectators were displaced by the duelists. There were not the two thousand promised by Isis, but there were enough, and I could readily identify them, each and every one... for unlike the others around them, they burned with an unlight, a darkness that my spectacles insisted on rendering visible.
I did not need them, now that I knew what I was seeking. I could taste the pulse of their rebellion in the magic that underpinned reality.
“Are you ready?” I said finally. “I weary of waiting on you.”
Temeret and Isis and their nameless ally from Ekadet pushed their way forward and stood proudly at the apex of their scythe of fighters. I saw the disdain and the confidence in them and grieved. This was what we had become in response to the greed and jealousy of humanity. The negativity begat more negativity, had become an unstoppable reaction that had led to the birth of the demon who was gathering strength even now, feeding on situations just like this one.
“We’re ready,” Temeret said.
“You’ll regret this,” e Ekadet added. “You’ll regret bei
ng born, imposter.”
I nodded. “Then call the start.” I smiled thinly. “I will grant you the honor.”
Temeret stared at me, disturbed, but his sister cried, “ATTACK!”
The host lunged toward me.
And stopped as I fisted my hand in their magic.
The rain fell, a whisper now rather than a drum. The bonfire crackled, hissed. No one moved until someone made the mistake of trying, and I tightened my grip. As one, they fell to their knees.
I could have killed them. In a single spasm of will, I could have starved them of the magic that fed their enchantments and they would have been extinguished. But I didn’t need to because they knew it. I was standing at complete ease in their midst, holding my staff with one hand with the other held closed at my side, and I had not shifted even a half step in their direction, but they knew that they were mine.
On the magic that linked them all, I sent my voice, and my words moved toward them like the ripple on a wave. “I am your prince, and you are mine. Yield, or I will honor your rebellion, and deliver you to God.”
In the heartbeat between my last word and my next breath I prayed that they would listen. That they would value their lives more than whatever temporal power or pride they nurtured as poor nourishment in its stead. But more of them than I wished strove against me, and I wept as I severed them from the world. In that moment, Ivy and Chester made good on their promises to me, for I felt their loving support as the bulwarks that kept me from descending into self-hatred. They made me worthy of Amhric, who shone through me like light from the firmament, and I licked the tears from my lips as elves died. The sight of their passage quelled the rebellion in the hearts of many, but spurred some others, and I had to stop them. And another wave, smaller than the second. Until at last there were no elves left who questioned our dominion, and I could not see for my weeping, though I wept in silence, and the rain washed my face and left it blameless to anyone who knew me not at all.
On Wings of Bone and Glass Page 12