The High King's Vengeance

by Steven Poore

  Malessar’s smile was thin and lacked any humour. “You look like her. Sometimes you even sound like she did. The North calls to you.”

  She shook her head. “No – I don’t understand . . . how can I do anything? I’m a girl.”

  “You are the Heir to Caenthell.”

  I am the Heir to the North.

  The warlock’s gaze held her own. Though his features were haggard and bruised, his eyes were as sharp as the wind that drove through the Hamiardin Pass. There was no anger, no accusation or blame. Just quiet appraisal again, exactly as there had been in the library at Hellea, and at the rail on board the Rabbit.

  No. No – you’re seeing something that isn’t there. I’m a storyteller, nothing more. But she had fought the mists at Karakhel, hadn’t she? She was more – much more – than she had been before.

  But still, I’m only a girl!

  “It took Baum decades to learn your skills,” she said slowly. “Even you could not teach me how to defeat those wraiths in just a few days – even if you were stronger again.”

  Malessar shook his head in agreement. “Of course not. And this time the wraiths of Karakhel will be the outriders and heralds of the force that is gathering behind them. I felt that force, Cassia – I battled against it to keep those wards intact. It was a hard, compressed kernel of seething anger and destructive energy. It must be appeased or defeated, and I can do neither.”

  The wraiths had been bad enough, but now she was forced to imagine some terrible, amorphous force controlling them from the ruined stones of Caenthell.

  And somehow I can defeat it?

  She pushed away from the bed, convinced Malessar’s wounds and the revocation of the curse had combined to break open his mind.

  “I can’t do this,” she protested. “Not alone. I don’t know enough. Surely another sorcerer would be better placed to do this . . .”

  “No,” Malessar interrupted. “If any aided you, it would be for their own cause. The North would suffer even more than it already does. And if one sorcerer assisted you, then another would stand in his way. And then a third. And three sorcerers together will not rest until two have fled, or are dead. I’m sorry, Cassia,” he added in a gentler voice, “but I have told you already that sorcerers have no brotherhood. I would trust none of them with this.”

  “But you’d trust me,” she said bitterly, “and I betrayed you to Baum in the first place.”

  The warlock did not reply. Cassia picked herself up from the floor, taking care not to tread upon the sleeping sisters. If Malessar was not concerned by their unresponsiveness, she decided, then neither should she be. But dawn would not be too far away now, and she had to return to her room before the guards – and Rais, of course – awoke and discovered her missing.

  “So where do I start? How do I start? I cannot just walk up the Emperor’s March, into Caenthell, and tell this great force of evil to disappear into the ground. I’m on the other side of the world! And if I’m the Heir to the North then I’ll need my own army, otherwise nobody will believe a word I say to them! Maybe I should just make my own legion, as you did! It’s impossible—”

  She stopped and stared down at Malessar, her last words still echoing through her mind. The warlock’s expression was deliberately opaque, but she thought he was suppressing a slight smile.

  I’m thinking about this in the wrong way. I’m thinking as though I were still just a storyteller’s daughter. But I’m not. I’m more than that. Pelicos had his sword, but he survived by his wits. And by striking fast bargains with the people and creatures he met. Now I have Pelicos’s sword, and I am the Heir to the North.

  “There are some attributes the gods themselves cannot grant,” Malessar said. “Self-belief. Determination.”

  Cassia pulled a face. “Now you sound like my father in his more pompous moments.” But she had already distracted herself with another thought. I could make my own legion.

  Malessar closed his eyes. “I must rest, girl.”

  He looked more relaxed, she decided as she threaded her way back between the mats of the sleeping sisters. Like a great weight had been lifted from his mind. That was not what she had expected to see. Relief, in fact.

  There will never be any Heir to the North, he had told her once. I killed every last one.

  But you didn’t. One survived. And here I am. She thought about that for a long moment, staring back at the bed before pulling the door closed gently behind her. Yes – relief. That’s it. This was the aspect of a man who had never believed there would be any redemption for his actions. If she had ever doubted his humanity, she would no longer.

  The corridors of the palace were still empty, despite the slowly lightening skies. Cassia’s skin prickled and she kept a deliberately cautious pace. Something felt very off-balance. It was not the same sensation that caused her to shiver when Malessar or Baum had used their sorcery, but something far more subtle and disturbing, something she thought she should recognise but could not truly identify. It echoed against the far-distant pounding of the drums.

  And she was being watched again. She was certain of that, even though she knew there was nobody else within sight. She paused and stepped out of a rich colonnade into one of the gardens, into the open air. The tiles were still cold underfoot.

  “Who’s there?” she called out. Her voice rang between the columns, should have woken any who slept in the adjoining rooms, as well as drawing the nearest guards, but the air remained dead and undisturbed.

  I am not imagining this. There is somebody out here. Someone who had watched her creep through the halls and gardens to speak with Malessar – and who must have caused the sisters of Peleanna to sleep like stone. But not another sorcerer.

  “Craw,” she guessed aloud. “Craw, I know you are there.”

  The hooded figure that stepped silently from behind a column still managed to startle her. She told herself it was only that she had not known where he would appear from.

  “Cassia Cat’s-Paw, Blood of the North,” Craw greeted her formally. “It is a pleasure to meet you once more.”

  “You listened to all of that, didn’t you?” she said. “In fact, you knew all of it already – and you never said anything.”

  Craw appeared to glide over the tiles towards her and Cassia struggled to keep from backing away. The dragon had rescued her from Karakhel, but the weight of lore and legend reminded her that the beasts never acted in any interest other than their own. And she had seen Craw’s natural, bestial form. That such a terrifying monster might disguise itself as human had always been one of the aspects of the stories of the Age of Talons that frightened her the most.

  “But I did,” he corrected her. “I remarked to you at the time that Baum had brought the Heir to the North with him.”

  “And I thought you meant Meredith,” Cassia said. She was more angry at herself than anything else. “Bloody obtuse dragon.”

  He bowed his head. “Thank you, child.”

  She blinked. I swore at a dragon. And he took it as a compliment. Her life seemed to get stranger with each passing day.

  “What do you want of me, Craw?”

  The dragon’s mouth quirked.

  “There must be something,” Cassia said. Fatigue made her bolder than was probably wise. “Why else would you still the entire palace with magic so that I could talk with Malessar?”

  “You know who you are,” Craw said. “And you know what you have unleashed upon the North. Your North. Malessar is powerless. I am interested to know what you will do to save your lands.”

  I thought I was saving my lands. That was the worst thing.

  She looked about the garden, at the columns that surrounded it on all four sides. Now her senses were more focused, she could see the guards stationed at the corners of the colonnades. They were motionless – statues, as dormant as the sisters of Peleanna had been. As Meredith now was.

  Statues. That was the second time tonight she had thought of them. There was a glimme
r at the back of her mind. A plot, perhaps, that could be worthy of Pelicos himself. Or even Gelis.

  “Can you see the North, Craw?” she asked. “Can you feel what is happening there?”

  “In part. Pyraete has never stepped lightly on the earth. He gathers his strength. He will descend from the mountains as an avalanche of vengeance. Time runs short, Cassia. What will you do?”

  Some of Baum’s deviousness must have transferred itself to her, she decided, as the bare bones of her plan slotted into place. She kept her face as straight as possible, hoping Craw could not truly read her mind.

  “Every answer has a cost, Craw,” she said. Her voice barely quavered.

  The dragon’s smile broadened slowly. “Bravo, girl. You are learning.”

  4

  I trust you slept well?”

  Rais sauntered from his rooms and Cassia glared up at him, a mouthful of soft fruit preventing an immediate reply. The prince wore an insufferable smile that complemented the rich pattern of his loose-laced shirt. His hair was freshly oiled and pushed back from his face. A pair of gilded short scabbards hung from either hip; the hilts of the weapons indicating that they were far more decorative than practical. If he had intended to impress her, he had missed the mark by some distance. His presence had none of Meredith’s reassuring weight – he was a pampered flower who played at being a Watchman.

  That impression lasted until she read the intelligence in his eyes. Dark and calculating. Waiting for her to give herself away. He had spent the last two days making sure her life was uncertain, that she was kept off-balance. That stance would not have changed overnight.

  Indeed, the very brief, restless sleep she had managed to steal after her meeting with Craw had been ended firmly by the pair of servants Rais had assigned to her. The two girls, neither of whom could be much older than Cassia, fussed around her until pure discomfort drove her out into the garden, to find that breakfast had already been laid for her. Fruit, boiled eggs, flatbreads and sweet pastries – such an array she barely knew where to begin. She curled up on one of the benches and regarded the low table with suspicion. It didn’t take long for hunger to win the argument.

  Could Rais know she had visited Malessar the previous night? There was no reason for him to know, especially if Craw’s magic had been so effective, but she still did not trust him. Suddenly aware that she was lounging on the bench like a courted princess, she swung her legs down and sat straight again.

  “I slept,” she said bluntly.

  “Then appearances do indeed deceive,” Rais said. “You look more exhausted than yesterday.”

  She cast him a sour look. “Do they teach manners to Galliarcan princes?”

  “Sometimes,” Rais said. He swept up a plate and took it to the bench opposite her. “But I am charming enough already.”

  Cassia decided to concentrate on the sweet pastries rather than reply to that.

  “You look as though you belong here,” Rais continued after a moment. “If not for the tattered clothing and the sullen demeanour, one might almost believe you had noble blood.”

  That earned him another glower, but again the prince seemed not to notice. It was deliberate, Cassia decided, but why was he needling her like this? Was he intimating that he knew who she was? And if so, how had he found out? Only Malessar could have told him. Or Craw. But that would open up even more questions.

  I thought I left myself out of the story.

  “The eggs were laid by fowl from a flock that my grandfather captured when he fought against the Hordes,” Rais said.

  “They’re just eggs,” Cassia said. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  Rais shrugged. “You should be honoured. We do not serve meals of such pedigree to just anyone.”

  She cast her plate back onto the table, not caring if it rattled or chipped. “I’m not in the mood for these games, sir. Why don’t you just say what you want?”

  She regretted the outburst as soon as it left her lips, but Rais only lifted his brow and rolled his shoulders to shrug away her anger. “Because I am civilised, Cassia.”

  “But not honest,” she snapped back.

  “Now you wound me,” Rais said. His smile flattened. “Do not insult my intelligence. I know the Call to the North, and I know the Fall of Caenthell. Your details are different, but then I would expect them to be. I know the terms of the curse, however. The world knows the terms of that curse. Need I repeat them to you?”

  Cassia shook her head. “No. I know them well enough.”

  “Then you also know, as well as I do, that if the curse has been broken then at least one of Jedrell’s descendants survived that catastrophe, and their line has continued, unbroken, to this day. Answer me this, Cassia, since you were there. Who is the heir to Caenthell?”

  Rais leaned forward. His mask of carefree good cheer had disappeared now, replaced with the hard, authoritative confidence she had last seen on Baum’s face when he confronted Malessar. Both men had complete self-assurance. Absolute belief in their superiority. It wasn’t something Cassia felt she could match. Not even with the drums pushing her onwards from the back of her mind.

  After a long moment, the prince tilted his head to one side. “Is that blunt enough for you?”

  He had to know already who had been in the house along with Malessar and Baum. Narjess was dead, and Leili was clearly not of Northern stock. And Meredith – Meredith was unmoving stone. He might have never lived at all.

  That leaves only me. It isn’t so difficult to work out. And now he wants to intimidate a confession from me.

  Cassia wasn’t even ready to admit it to herself yet.

  She drew herself up and took a deep breath, but Rais waved her into silence once more.

  “I shall let you dwell upon the question a while longer. But my father will not be so accommodating.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. My father, the king, will question you himself before noon. I trust you will have amended your manners before then.” Rais dropped his gaze to her shirt. “And perhaps you will be more presentable.”

  These were the same clothes in which she had faced soldiers and sorcerers alike. They were stained by the time she had spent in the palace’s cells, and streaks and patches of blood had dried into the sleeves. Self-consciously, she tugged at the neck of her shirt. Stand like this before a king? But nobody would take her seriously.

  “Where are the rest of my clothes?” she asked.

  Rais stood. “I’m certain my Court can find something to suit.” He gestured to the two sullen girls who had remained at the side of the garden. “You are my responsibility, after all. Try not to be late.”

  She stared after him in mute outrage. The man was insufferable.

  “I’d like my clothes back!” she shouted at his back. “And the rest of my belongings, sir. All of them!”

  Now the two girls had been given what amounted to a royal warrant to scrub and groom her, Cassia found it impossible to get them to leave her alone. While she had eaten, a wooden tub banded with decorated metal hoops had been dragged into her room, and one of the girls methodically tipped buckets of scented water into it while the other stripped her clothes away until she stood tense and naked on the tiled floor. The girls would not allow her to lift a single hand to help herself. It was unnerving to have such close attention forced upon her. A panicked part of her mind prayed that Rais would not choose this moment to intrude.

  The water was on the cool side of comfortable, and in any event she was given no time to enjoy the bath as the girls began to scrub and scrape layers of dirt from her skin. They were not gentle. Cassia gritted her teeth and hunched her shoulders. If this was a part of the price Rais wanted her to pay, then she would pay it. But she would remember it too.

  I am the Heir to the North. And I will have him flogged.

  She flicked a glance at the girl on her left, and hoped she hadn’t spoken out loud. She wasn’t sure where the thought had come from.
No, she knew. It came from the North. The mountains. Caenthell. Just like the drums.

  Rais’s servants said not a word to her, however, and neither did they give any sign that they understood anything she said to them – mostly protests and pained curses. Not even the gutter Galliarcan curses.

  Next came a wine-dark gown, which was pulled tight at her waist before flowing down in long overlapping strips that, to her horror, opened to show her thighs with every step she took. The curling golden patterns that decorated the strips scarcely detracted from the revealing cut. Was this what the prince wanted to see? She should have guessed as much. Aliciana would never have worn this.

  She pondered that for a moment while one girl adjusted the gown’s straps. Malessar’s carving of the last Queen of the North showed her seated and regal, dressed in far more traditional robes and furs, as befitted a mountain kingdom. They were not clothes that would be suited to Galliarca’s warmer days, she had to admit, but hadn’t Malessar told her that the figurine once had a twin?

  The Mistress of Blades, she thought. Perhaps she should dress in that fashion, if only she knew what that was.

  The other girl yanked at the tangles in Cassia’s hair with a fine-toothed comb, working methodically but with speed. Cassia stifled several gasps as it felt as though her hair was being pulled out by the roots. She had not cut it since well before her father’s last performance in Keskor, and now it hung over her shoulders – too long to comfortably fit beneath a storyteller’s cap, but too short to be plaited or otherwise tied back without looking a mess. Rais’s girl oiled it instead, so it lay close to her skull, like some of the women of the Court Cassia had seen the previous day. The oil made her skin itch and her hair felt peculiar and solid.

  What on earth do I look like? She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflective surface of a lacquered cabinet and had to wonder if she was still the same person. She was sure she looked as awkward as she felt.