A Court of Lies

by Kate Avery Ellison

  As if hearing their names, Sieya and Vox darted from the brush. Sieya rushed to Briand’s side and sniffed her all over, especially the wound, her thoughts equal parts apologetic and concerned.

  Vox hung his head a few steps out of reach, his eyes large and mournful.

  He knew he’d been bad. His nose drooped to his paws, and he made a soft whimpering sound in his throat as Briand sent a questioning thought at him.

  “They became…” Briand searched the thoughts of the dracules. “Distracted? It was as if our link weakened. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Has that ever happened before?” Tibus asked.

  “Did you just say that you had a link to the dragon creatures?” Auberon asked. “A mental link?”

  “No,” Briand said to Tibus. To Auberon, she gave only a cutting glance.

  “I just saved your life,” he reminded her as she pushed through the vines toward the horses. “I saved all your lives by pointing out the trap.”

  “You saved your own most of all,” Tibus grunted.

  Auberon fell into a stony silence as they mounted and rode on.

  ~

  They waited at the edge of the ruin for Kael, everyone on high alert, and when he appeared suddenly in the tall grass, every hand except Auberon’s held a knife at ready before they saw that it was him.

  “What happened?” Kael asked, his attention sharpening at the sight of so much steel. His gaze lit on Nath and Tibus, and then Briand, and his eyebrows arched in question.

  When he’d heard the account of the trilazyti, the bandits, and the trap, Kael swept the ruins behind them with a grim stare. “We’ll keep riding, then,” he said. “We’ll make camp on the mountain when we’re far enough away that I’m satisfied we weren’t followed.” He shot a look at Auberon. “Where did you learn to read trilazyti?”

  The Seeker lifted his chin haughtily. “My father was a scholar. He had a taste for old, long-dead things. I’m surprised you’ve even heard of it, traitor.”

  “You’d be surprised by a lot of things,” Kael said, and swung into the saddle.

  The rain had begun to pour down in earnest, and it was a miserable slog up the slope. The horses rode in a single file line, nose to tail, and their riders huddled atop their saddles with cloaks over their heads. Lightning split the sky, making the horses snort and shy, and the thunder was so loud it sounded as if the mountain were cleaving in two.

  Finally, Kael signaled for them to stop.

  They found a cave, empty of bears or wild cats, large enough to fit them all and a small fire. A few sticks lay inside, dry enough to coax a bit of flame, and Kael used his subtle magic to make them burn brighter and hotter than one would expect from such a small bundle of sticks.

  Auberon did not appear to notice. He sat against the wall of the cave, water dripping from his hair and cloak onto the ground, staring at the chain connecting his wrists, his gaze remote.

  Nath passed around food, and they huddled close to the warmth. All except Auberon.

  Briand cleared her throat. She looked at the Seeker. He didn’t look up.

  “Perhaps now would be a good time to go over the plan again,” Nath suggested.

  “Yes,” Kael agreed. He turned toward the figure slouched against the wall, radiating displeasure. “Auberon.”

  The Seeker’s head rose an inch. His eyes found Kael’s. His mouth curled. “You called?”

  “What else can you tell us about Ikarad?” Kael asked.

  Auberon opened his mouth, his expression suggesting he was about to tell Kael to jump off the side of the mountain, but then he looked at Briand, and he appeared to reconsider.

  “Ikarad,” Auberon said, tipping his head back to lean it against the stone wall of the cave, “is an ancient maze of ice tunnels and corridors. The foundations are more ancient still. They were forged upon curses and spells.”

  “What kind of curses and spells?” Briand asked, leaning forward.

  “Spells to rearrange the walls, or spells to lower bridges and light torches,” Auberon replied. His lips curled as if thinking of something delightful. “To open walls, to reveal pathways. But the magic that built the foundation is tricky. It cannot be trusted.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance as if to underscore his words.

  “Typical Seeker magic,” Nath muttered.

  The air in the cave seemed to thicken with apprehension, and then Kael produced a worn pack of Dubbok cards and laid them on the sand. “Perhaps a change of topic might be in order,” he suggested.

  A smile stretched across Briand’s face as she looked at them. “What’s this?”

  “I picked them up in the last trader’s town,” he replied. “I thought Nath might enjoy being beaten.”

  “By you?” Nath demanded. “Did you pick up a blow to the head while you were at it? Because you’re daft as a half-dead hound if you think that’ll happen.”

  Tibus snatched up the cards with a chortle. “What’ll it be, fellows? River, plains, or traditional?”

  “Don’t you dare say plains,” Nath said, stabbing a finger in Kael’s face. Kael laughed.

  “I’ll play you and beat you in any version you choose,” he said. “I’ve spent a great deal of time with our prince lately, and he plays every version of Dubbok known to man.”

  “I’ll see you eat those words,” Nath responded, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth.

  Auberon watched from his place against the wall, his mouth fixed in a disinterested sneer as Tibus shuffled the cards and began to deal.

  “Dragonsayer?” Nath asked, extending a hand of cards to Briand with a flourish.

  Before she could take them, the dracules both lifted their heads from where they were lying on the floor of the cave. Kael held up a finger; they all listened.

  Something was moving through the forest outside. Over the drumming of raindrops, Briand heard the snap of a stick beneath a foot.

  Kael kicked sand over the fire, extinguishing it, as Nath and Tibus reached for their weapons. Briand drew her knife as she dipped into the dracules’ minds. Sieya and Vox pricked their ears and listened, noses pointed toward the opening of the cave. Kael disappeared into the veil of rain after a whispered discussion with Nath and Tibus, who grimly guarded the entrance to the cave.

  Auberon’s gaze cut to Briand. He looked frustrated.

  “And if you are all murdered,” he whispered fiercely, “I suppose I shall starve to death?”

  He was ignored.

  Kael returned later, his cloak streaming water, and reported that he’d found nothing. But they spent the rest of the night silent and on edge, and Briand lay listening for the sound of footsteps until she fell asleep.

  She thought of Bran and Cait, off the help the refugees. They must have taken them to the coast by now. She thought of Maera and the rest of the thieves. How did they fare? Did everyone believe it was her beneath the bandages?

  These thoughts occupied her mind until she finally succumbed to slumber.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Nyr

  THE QUEEN OF Nyr summoned Jehn into her presence one morning not long before their wedding date, and he came at her beckoning like the dutiful consort-to-be that he was, dressed in a robe of sky blue with gold filigree shimmering and swirling across the silk panels of the Nyrian garment like the waves of the sea. It was a luxurious, princely robe, the kind worn by young men who preferred to lie by the ocean and drink wine. The Nyrian ministers eyed Jehn with amusement when they saw him wearing it, with the medallion Kael had rescued dangling against his chest, visible where the robe hung open. No doubt they thought he had no idea what he was saying with the garment, or worse, that the queen of Nyr had chosen to dress him in it without his understanding of why.

  They thought him a fool. A plaything.

  But Jehn had chosen the garment, and he knew exactly what it meant to the Nyrians.

  He met the queen’s eyes across the room, and she quirked up one eyebrow as she took in his me
aning. She, by contrast, was dressed in grave, somber splendor, wearing an ornate, high-collared dress of black silk with a bodice of gold-covered leather that covered her upper half like a breastplate. Golden bracers covered her forearms. She looked ready for battle. Her face was painted with pale gold—her cheekbones shimmered as if dusted by the sun, her lips were like bronze. Her eyes, heavy with tints, pinned him in place like a knife to the throat.

  “I never said you had to dress like a playboy,” she murmured under her breath when he came to stand alongside her by the windows of the room. They were in one of the palace towers, a large, sun-soaked room open to the wind that overlooked the palace grounds. The queen, Jehn was told, often took her meetings with her ministers here. The previous ruler had used another room, one closer to his chambers, but some said the queen liked to make the ministers climb the stairs to wear down their wills.

  Jehn had another thought about why she chose the location.

  “Does it embarrass you?” he asked, matching her voice for tone and quietness. The others could not hear their private conversation. They appeared to be exchanging pleasantries, as an engaged couple might. “After all, you pretend the reason we chose to marry is because you are so madly in love with me. Does it bother you to be in love with a foppish idiot?”

  “No,” she said. “And supposedly, we are madly in love with each other, my husband-to-be, so bear that in mind. And if you look like a fool, it does not bother me. It might even help my case. My ministers fear most that I might not be able to control you, after all. If they think you will be placated by a little wine, a little play, they might relax. And, of course, no one will take you seriously. Is that what you want?”

  “I love it when we talk honestly like this,” he said, the warmth of his words tinged with sarcasm, and the queen turned startled eyes on him.

  “Passion,” she said with a hint of a smile. “From the one who is usually so reserved, so remote. Have I awakened something in you?”

  Jehn smiled tightly. “Victory has an enervating effect, does it not?”

  The queen’s eyes flashed. Jehn said no more, as it was probably not wise to goad her.

  The ministers approached to speak to her, and Jehn took the opportunity to walk to the windows that lined all side of the tower room. He gazed at the view before him—first up at the rest of the palace, rounded domes and cylindrical towers gleaming in the sun, a cluster of them stretching almost to the sky from the center of the palace, like a hand reaching for the heavens. The queen’s grandfather had built those towers, according to the history he’d recently read, and her father was murdered in one of them.

  Then, Jehn looked down at the lush green that blanketed the grounds around the palace. Pockets of blue and deep turquoise signaled the presence of fountains and ponds amid the gardens.

  He found the queen’s garden, and a coil of satisfaction tightened in his gut. He felt curiously alive at being right, though it was not a surprise to him that he was. He found that he’d wanted to be right, but not for the sake of being right for once. But because he was intrigued by the meaning of what he had predicted and anticipated.

  He smelled the subtle, sweet scent that always seemed to cling to the queen, and then she was beside him again, the ministers speaking among themselves now.

  “What is that scent?” he asked. “That perfume you use? It is familiar to me.”

  “What scent?” she said, bracing her arms on the stone rail of the balcony. Her hair, arranged in a series of gleaming black coils that draped over her shoulders, shimmered in the sun.

  “It smells like flowers,” he said.

  “It is the scent of my favorite flower,” she said. “The black lioness. A beautiful lily with purple, black spotted petals. But the nectar is poison.”

  “A surprising choice for one’s favorite flower,” Jehn said neutrally. But perhaps it was not so surprising, for this queen.

  He did not say this, however.

  The queen seemed to choose to take his statement as a compliment. She inclined her head slightly toward the view. “What do you think of my palace from up here?” she asked.

  “The tower is tall,” Jehn said. “The view is beautiful. But I prefer the other tower—the one that only the servants use now. It affords a nice vantage point, does it not?”

  Her face jerked around, and she stared at him a moment.

  Jehn held her gaze as he gave her the barest of nods.

  He had found it. The second riddle to the queen’s garden. He had climbed the steps of the other tower just that morning and found a new vantage point from which to view the garden at a higher point. And he’d seen that the portrait of the queen had transformed into something else. A second image.

  A serpent, coiled and ready to strike.

  The cleverness in such a design took his breath away. And to know that she had designed it…

  Her lips curved ever so slightly in a ghost of a smile that vanished when he blinked. Then her eyes narrowed.

  “You surprise me sometimes, Jehn of Austrisia,” she said.

  It was, he knew, a compliment.

  Words hovered on his tongue. He wanted to ask how she had chosen and implemented such a design. Who had seen it? He was impressed with her, and he wanted to know more.

  He was intrigued.

  Perhaps, he thought, this marriage could be more pleasant than he had hoped.

  The minister of commerce approached them, bowing low as he interrupted their conversation. “Your Matchless Magnificence,” he said to the queen with a bow.

  The queen clasped her hands in front of her. Her mouth formed an imposing frown. “Yes? What is it?”

  “We received word only moments ago that your navy has intercepted a small fleet of ships in Nyrian waters,” the minister of commerce reported. He was a small man with a mustache like a smudge of ink on the place below his nose.

  Jehn lifted his head at the man’s words.

  The Austrisian refugees had arrived.

  “And?” the queen asked.

  The minister licked his lips. He bowed his head. “When our men boarded the ships, they discovered that they were filled with pirates masquerading as refugees from Austrisia. They must have been planning to sail into the harbor and plunder what they could. It was a bold plan, but we discovered them when one of the pirates accidentally revealed the bodies of their slain captives.” The minister paused, his expression pained. “They even had pirate children with them to complete the deception.”

  Jehn stared at the minister of commerce as the words sank into his mind like stones into a dark pond. The word pirates had sent a cascade of images through his head—memories of the sight of dark sails on the horizon, the acrid scent of burning tar, the shrill cry of wounded as the battle raged. It was as if he had been transported back to the deck of the ship he’d stood upon the day they were captured. He felt sick, shaky. He looked at the queen of Nyr, who was as composed as if the minister had just reported to her that they were serving roasted duck for dinner. Her eyebrows drew together as she spoke.

  “Where are these pirates and their ships now?” she said.

  Jehn put out a hand to steady himself against a column.

  Pirates.

  The refugees were killed by pirates.

  Bile rose in Jehn’s throat. Sweat beaded his upper lip.

  “They are being guarded in the harbor by Your Majesty’s warships. No other ships have been allowed to get close,” the minister reported. “I can assure you, none of the pirates have escaped.”

  The queen looked at Jehn out of the corner of her eye. “Have the ships emptied and the stowaways placed in the innermost dungeon.”

  The minister of commerce opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a finger. “Please inform the Austrisian dignitaries of these most unfortunate events, but keep your conversations discreet. I do not want to cause a panic among my people.”

  The minister looked irritated at being told what to do like a servant, but the queen gave him
a look that radiated fire, and he seemed to think better of saying anything at all. He bowed and stalked away while the other ministers looked on with mild amusement.

  “My condolences,” the queen of Nyr said to Jehn, who could only gape at her. His hand had begun to ache, the pain crawling up his arm to his shoulder and head. He managed a bow.

  “Excuse me,” he heard himself saying dimly, as if he were speaking on the other side of a thick curtain. “I must go.”

  He managed to reach the bottom of the stairs before he vomited into the bushes that lined the portico.

  ~

  Later, when Jehn could think rationally again, he grew cold with a different sort of dread. It was evening; the sky streaked with shades of indigo and violet that faded upward into a blanket of stars. The moon hung like an overripe fruit, casting silver light across the path he took through the queen’s garden, because that was the fastest way to reach the queen.

  He burned with anger.

  Anger and an uncomfortable emotion that sat beneath his ribs like a lodged stone.

  It was easy to see his way in the brilliant moonlight.

  The queen sat on the edge of a stone bridge, her bare feet dangling in the water. She did not look up at his approach. Guards in gleaming armor stepped forward from the shadows to intercept him, crossing spears in front of him. One reached out to plant a hand on Jehn’s chest.

  They didn’t care who he was. He had all the power and command of a courtesan here.

  “You liar!” he shouted.

  The queen still didn’t look up. She didn’t react at all. The water made a soft lapping sound around her ankles. Her hair stirred in the wind, blowing across her mouth. She reached up with one hand and brushed the tendril away.

  “Where are they?” Jehn snarled.

  “In the dungeon,” the queen said. “As you heard me order earlier.”

  So, his realization had been correct. Something inside Jehn broke. But he didn’t turn away, even when the guard who’d planted a hand against his chest gave him a shove.

  He had to be sure.