Of Kings and Killers

by Will Wight

  But would they take this first opportunity he was dangling before them, on the very night of the Farstrider report’s release? Or would they bide their time?

  Calder and the speech-writers from the Imperial Palace had all agreed not to address Estyr’s accusations directly. Anything they threw up in their defense would only become ammunition against them, in the mind of the public.

  Instead, he spoke about his passion for Imperial unity, alluded to the panel of experts who had publicly confirmed his freedom from Elder influence, and promised to crack down on Elder activity by making cultist-hunting the army’s top priority and by funding the maintenance of increased security on the Great Elder tombs.

  The crowd didn’t cheer him or shout support. He hadn’t expected them to, though it would have been encouraging.

  But they didn’t jeer him or swarm the Emperor’s Stage to take his head on a spike, so he would take his victories where he could.

  As his mouth worked and his eyes scanned the crowd for raised guns, his ears caught the first signs of intrusion: a shout from deeper in the building. The crowd wouldn’t hear it, and he almost missed it himself, but his Imperial Guards muttered to each other and closed ranks behind him.

  Stealthily, he glanced behind him to see Rosephus the Champion clanking down the hallway, running deeper into the building.

  Tyria followed him more gracefully, wearing armor of leather and mail that would allow her greater freedom of movement than her partner. Her weapon seemed to be a long needle the size of her arm, but he would never question what arms a Champion carried into battle.

  A Guard stepped up next to him, taking his arm. “It’s time to go, sir.”

  Calder pulled away, and the Guard couldn’t manhandle him in front of the crowd. If there were an imminent threat to Calder’s life, Calder would be carried off, but for the moment he could get away with staying put.

  Still speaking, he slipped his hand inside the Emperor’s clothes and pulled out an icy lump of metal from an interior pocket. The Awakened padlock looked like it was made of ice and crystal as well as steel. The Awakening process had transformed it into a jagged work of art.

  He was making no effort to Read it, but it bled eagerness to shut doors, to seal windows. All harmful elements must be kept out for the sake of protection.

  Calder pressed the lock against the balcony and snapped it shut.

  An invisible surge of Intent shivered through the entire Emperor’s Stage, sealing every door and window at once. If the Gardener wanted to escape, they would have to break through glass or wood, which would reveal their position.

  A smile crept up on him as he spoke. The Consultants had taken the bait so quickly.

  Now he had them.

  Concentrating on the Consultants, he didn’t realize at first that he had gone off-script.

  “…you know, I’ve seen Elderspawn.” He shouldn’t be addressing this so directly, but there was an assassin in the building after his life. If he couldn’t play recklessly now, when could he?

  “In my youth, I worked for the Blackwatch. Ever since then, I’ve sailed the Aion, and I’ve seen things that put to shame the brightest dreams and the darkest nightmares. If you’d seen what I’d seen…then you, too, would fight to keep the Empire whole. No matter who stood in your way.”

  The last line came out grimmer than he intended, and the noise from the crowd dipped a little.

  But he was done with them. He turned from the balcony and walked into the building, where Guards pressed in on him so tightly that he had no space to breathe.

  “Your double is dead,” one said.

  A chill passed through his spine. On their first chance, the Consultants had succeeded in killing Calder’s replacement. If he had been in that guarded room, as planned, they would have killed him.

  The news of Rojric’s death also pained him more than he’d expected. They had both known there was a chance the double might be killed, and Rojric had taken that risk willingly. He had actually given his life for Calder’s.

  That was his job, but it still fueled Calder’s anger.

  The Guards took him down to a dark room where the Emperor’s armor and Calder’s sword waited. The room was packed with even more Guards, and Calder had to order one out of the room so that he could change.

  As he slipped out of the loose clothes and strapped on the armor one piece at a time, the Guards filled him in on the situation.

  Only moments ago, a servant had discovered a maid and two Guards unconscious outside of the secure room.

  It seemed the assassins had caught the maid leaving the room after delivering food, put her and the Guards to sleep with poisoned darts, and entered the door that had not yet shut after the maid’s exit. From this evidence, the Guards suggested they were dealing with a team of at least four Consultants.

  Rojric was found with a knife in the eye and a slit throat, which Calder found strange. If they’d thrown a knife from the doorway that landed in the eye, why had they walked all the way across the room to slit his throat?

  From the blood and the body, it was estimated that the body had been found only a minute or two after death. They were hot on the heels of the assassins.

  The second Calder pulled on his helmet, seeing only through the hardened glass of the Emperor’s visor, the Guards began carrying him away. “We’re taking you out, sir.”

  “You can’t.” He pulled himself free and stood his ground. “I’ve already sealed the building.”

  Some of the Guards looked at him in astonishment, others in anger. “You’ve locked yourself in a building with a team of Gardeners?”

  “No, I’ve locked them in here with us.”

  Somewhere along the side of the building, there came a gunshot and the sound of shattering glass.

  Three Guards dashed off, but Calder stayed put with the rest. They were in a wide open room, a preparation area for the Emperor before he went onstage, and Calder ordered quicklamps lit.

  “We’ll need the light to fight,” he told the Guards. “When they realize they can’t escape, they’ll come for me.”

  The building would only stay shut for about half an hour, less if its Intent was opposed, but the Consultants shouldn’t know that. They would have to assume that the building was sealed for good and act accordingly, which meant either breaking out or trying to finish the job.

  If they escaped, they would be caught.

  So he had to make the other option just as dangerous for them.

  Before the Guards could even reach for the lamps, a silver-blue mist billowed down the hall. It filled the room in seconds, the Guards drawing swords and shouting to each other as visibility shrank to almost nothing.

  Calder pulled his own ember-spotted blade, which stained the nearby mist with an orange glow. He filled the inside of his helmet with a reckless grin that no one else could see.

  Shera was here.

  He had only recently discovered that her promotion to Guild Head included control over Bastion’s Veil, the mist that had—until recently—protected the Consultant’s island. If this fog was here, so was Shera.

  This time, he was ready for her.

  He stood with his sword drawn, waiting for Shera and her team to come through the door. He waited. And waited.

  As the mist thinned, Calder began to feel like he had gotten excited for nothing. He sheathed his sword because there was no point in keeping it drawn.

  Eventually, he sat down against the far wall.

  A nearby Guard with arms that were twice as long as normal shifted uncomfortably, glancing at Calder. “Is this the Gardeners coming after us?”

  Many people had never seen the Bastion’s Veil that surrounded the Gray Island, but practically every one of the Imperialists had seen the silver fog that had hidden the Independent retreat during the battle of the Imperial Palace.

  They knew where this mist came from.

  “Coming after me, I think,” Calder said. “But there are Champions defending us.
”

  If Calder was honest with himself, he was a little worried that Shera would be killed or captured without him there to see it.

  It shouldn’t matter, but this was the woman who had kidnapped Jerri, killed Urzaia, and repeatedly tried to kill him. She had even pretended to be willing to work with him, only to drop that resolve instantly.

  He wanted to see her punishment with his own eyes. And he wanted to know why the Independents had ignored his messages; he had clearly told them that this was a matter of survival.

  “The Champions…they couldn’t even save themselves from the Consultants.”

  Calder looked from Guard to Guard. There were six still in here with him, as well as squads of four outside both doors into this storage room. Even a ghost couldn’t get into this room without raising an alarm.

  All six of the Guards wore shadowed expressions. They looked like Urg’naut himself had pulled a shadow of gloom over them.

  Calder almost reached beneath his armor. In a concealed pocket beneath the plates, he carried the Emperor’s crown. He had intended it as a backup weapon against the Consultants, but now it might come in handy to soothe his allies.

  Or…would it?

  The old Emperor hadn’t understood the emotions of men. Calder did.

  He pulled off his helmet and sat it next to him. “Whew! Hard to breathe in that thing. I can see why you all don’t wear helmets all the time.”

  Some glanced at him, but no one said a word about him taking his armor off.

  “Listen to me,” Calder commanded, and somewhat surprisingly they all did. The six Guards turned to him with looks of expectation.

  Well, he’d try not to let them down.

  “As you’ve heard, three Champions were killed recently. I have no proof, but we all know it was the Consultants. There are a million rumors about them: they’re everywhere, they know everything, they can kill anyone. But you know what? They had to kill Champions in their sleep. Or bomb them when they went to relieve themselves.”

  He threw out his hands. “You think they could touch Champions on a battlefield?”

  A few of the Guards shook their heads; they’d all seen Champions at work before.

  “Even at the Palace battle, it took entire teams of alchemists just to hold the Champions down. Not to kill them! Just to keep them from killing everyone else. Now, out there, we have a pair of fully armed and armored Champions against a squad of cowardly assassins who have never held a sword in their lives.”

  One of the Guards cleared his throat. “My great-uncle used to work for the Consultants, and weapons training is standard—”

  “Never drawn a sword in battle, then! It’s a figure of speech. The point is, if I were a gambling man—and I am—then I know who I’d bet on.”

  The mist had grown a little thicker, which made his voice seem more faint, so he raised it further. “I’m putting all my money, and my life itself, in the hands of the Champions…and the Imperial Guard. What do a bunch of spies have on you, huh?”

  The long-armed Guard forced a laugh, but at least his expression looked a little better. The other five were little more than shapes in the mist, but he hoped he had lightened the mood at least some.

  The lock on the western door clicked, and Calder perked up. If the outside Guards were coming in, that meant there must have been some news. Which could only mean that the Gardener had either escaped or been taken.

  Of the two Champions remaining to him, Tyria had the Soulbound power more suited to capturing enemies. Rosephus was temperamentally unfit for taking prisoners, and also his Vessel allowed him to create spectral weapons.

  Apparently all the blades he had strapped over his entire body weren’t enough; he had to conjure new ones.

  Most likely, Shera would escape. If she ran into Rosephus, she’d be dead, and Tyria would take her captive. He found himself rooting for Tyria, but he would accept any of those fates. At least they would come away from a conflict with the advantage.

  “Identify yourself,” the Guard on the inside of the door called.

  Before Calder could react, the door flew open and all of Bastion’s Veil flooded inside.

  The fog had strange effects on sound, so all of the Guard shouts seemed to come from all directions. Panicked cries and questions bounced throughout the room, but Calder could see no one.

  He couldn’t even see the helmet sitting on the ground next to him.

  Panic spiked in his throat, and he scrambled with both hands, sweeping them along the floor. He knew the helmet had to be around here somewhere, and if Shera caught him with his head bare, he would die in an instant.

  Finally, he hit something, and he seized the helmet in triumph.

  As he lifted it to his head, he glanced up.

  Shera emerged from the mist.

  Her tight-fitting gray silk made her whole body blend into the mist. Strands of her dark hair peeked from inside her hood…and her eyes were darker still, ice-cold, with crushing depths that made him think he was staring into the bottom of the ocean. A line of blood had been drawn across her cheek, just above the cloth that covered her nose, but she stared at him ready to deliver death.

  Her right arm was raised, clutching an Awakened knife that billowed with blue-silver clouds. Even as he shoved the helmet over his head, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. He’d let his guard down for the last time.

  A thorny vine made of golden light wrapped around Shera’s ankle and pulled her back into the mist.

  Champion Tyria’s Soulbound power.

  Calder’s helmet fitted into place, and for a moment the world was dark…until the Intent in the glass of the Emperor’s visor allowed him to see once more. The Emperor had intended it to enhance sight, so that was exactly what it did; Calder suffered almost no loss of vision from wearing the helmet.

  Shera lunged back out of the fog again, swinging her dagger, and Calder jerked his head back a moment too slow…but the blue Vessel skittered off the side of his helmet before he was able to back beyond her reach.

  She couldn’t break the Emperor’s armor. He was safe now.

  …but she wasn’t.

  Tyria emerged from the mist next to him, her silver needle in one hand and hair tied into a long tail. She still managed to look casual even with the gold power of a Soulbound pooling around her feet. Golden vines made of light retracted back.

  She shot him a wink and tapped that long needle of hers against her shoulder. “You’re pretty slippery, aren’t you?” she said into the fog.

  Before Shera could respond, an explosion of wood echoed through the room. Some of the Guards shouted, and Calder readied his sword; even Shera couldn’t have done all this without a team, and if this was the rest of her squad blasting through the door, he needed to be prepared to fight.

  But Rosephus helpfully identified himself by shouting “FACE ME, SNAKE!”

  Shera didn’t answer. Of course.

  Calder turned his helmet toward Tyria. “Has that ever worked?”

  “I’ve never fought with Rosephus before,” Tyria said. “But I can say with confidence that no, it never has.”

  “East exit!” someone shouted.

  Calder couldn’t pinpoint the direction of shouts in the mist, but he could see the north wall, so he could orient himself enough to be able to point to the east exit.

  If he could do it, the Champions could do it faster.

  Tyria instantly thrust her needle in the direction of the east exit, but held herself back from firing whatever power she had been about to unleash. If she fired blindly, she could easily hit a Guard.

  Rosephus had no such reservations. Calder saw him briefly emerging from the mist as he leaped entirely across the room, a massive man with a blade in one hand and a dozen more strapped all over his body. Daggers of red light floated over his head—the ghostly weapons created by his Soulbound Vessel.

  The floor cracked as he landed, and Rosephus continued to rage, so Calder took that to mean that Shera hadn’t been
caught.

  Tyria motioned to Calder, and when he leaned in, she kept her voice low. “You and I and that ape are the only three in this room she can’t kill. Spread out. He’s got the east exit covered, I’ll head to the west, and you walk along the south wall. Call out your location when you make contact.”

  She vanished with inhuman speed even before he nodded his understanding.

  Walking through the veil of magical mist was a uniquely terrifying experience, even though he was only a few paces from the south wall.

  The first two people he ran into were Guards, but they saw each other as dark shapes in the fog. He nearly crossed swords with each of them before they recognized each other and lowered their weapons in relief.

  When he reached the south wall, he decided to check the southeast corner first. Rosephus seemed like he would be less likely to check systematically, so his corner would be the most dangerous. Calder wanted to get that over with.

  As he walked, he saw something that focused his attention and made his breaths come faster: bloody footprints.

  They could belong to anyone, but he had seen Shera bleeding. Just as the thought occurred to him, he saw a silhouette crouched in the corner.

  He pushed his sword closer, afraid to approach. If this was Shera, he didn’t want to give her another chance to break through his armor. If it wasn’t, he didn’t want to accidentally stab anyone.

  But the orange light of his Awakened sword revealed the edge of a hood and the blue-tinged light of a dagger clutched tight in a gloved hand.

  Calder mastered his fear and his excitement, speaking with all the confidence he could scrape up. “By the authority of the Imperial Steward, you’re under arrest, Guild Head.”

  The dagger lifted, and Calder tensed, but Shera responded easily.

  “We’ve fought before. You want to try again?”

  He’d only directly fought her twice that he remembered, and she’d either bested him or escaped both times, despite his sword having her by almost two feet of reach. That first time, she’d spared him.

  He could learn from those encounters.