Stolen Crown

by Shawn Wickersheim

  “That was for Lord Ragget’s eyes only.”

  Cecily smiled. There was no warmth in it. “Don’t worry. He saw a different letter. A letter claiming you had succeeded. He was quite pleased.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Cecily pointed to the letter on the table. “Ian will not forget himself.” She read aloud. “The implanted thoughts will not stick. He will not admit to the regicide.” She looked up and trapped his eyes with hers. “I am simply reading but a few of the very interesting and incriminating passages I found here.”

  He reached for the letter. She was surprisingly quicker. He laughed. What else could he do?

  “So, you have a letter that exonerates Ian. What do you plan to do with it?”

  She shrugged. “Probably nothing at all. I just want some information.”

  “What kind of information?”

  Her green eyes narrowed with contempt. “How long have you been working for Devin?”

  He laughed again. “It’s not exactly like that.”

  “How exactly is it?”

  “Cecily, I can explain.”

  “Have you been working for Devin all along?”

  “All along . . .? No! He only sought me out last year. He had a ship bring me back from Bel’yowlye. He doesn’t remember me from before.”

  “How can I be sure? From the sound of your letter, it would seem you’re still the charlatan I knew fifteen years ago.”

  “Charlatan?” Di Rygazzo smiled. “No Princess, I wield very potent magic.”

  Cecily raised an eyebrow, obviously not impressed. “Oh really?”

  “Lord Ragget has rid you of Lord Ian, hasn’t he?”

  “He was supposed to have done that BEFORE I married him!”

  Stephano Di Rygazzo shrugged. “I could not have predicted that my implanted suggestion would cause Lord Ragget to scheme to such depths and for so many years! I only did as you directed.”

  “You only did as I directed . . .” Cecily leaned closer. Stephano Di Rygazzo couldn’t help but notice her cleavage peeking out at him. It really was quite lovely. “Then should I still consider you one of MY faithful servants?”

  Stephano Di Rygazzo suppressed his laughter and instead crossed his arms over his chest. The thought he was anyone’s servant was absurd, but often when he manipulated people, he found the ones who thought they were giving the orders the easiest to control. He studied her for a long moment. Her tremendous beauty hid something much darker inside, a sly, seductive charm and . . .

  And an intelligent wickedness she cleverly concealed beneath her innocent facade. Inexplicably, he shivered inside his cloak, and a tremor of delight trickled up his leg. Perhaps he had found a new Vessel!

  “What is it you wish for me to do?” he asked softly.

  Cecily held up his letter and smiled again. This time he felt a flicker of warmth. Oh, she was good. Turning her charms on and off so easily. She would be a natural fit for what he had in mind.

  “Tell me . . . who really killed my grandfather?”

  The tremor fizzled. “I thought it was obvious. You haven’t figured it out yet?”

  “I hadn’t given it much thought until now,” she said it so casually he almost believed her. “But I imagine it was my father.”

  The thrill returned. “Why do you say that?”

  Cecily tossed her hair back with a flick of her head. “Well . . . even after what I saw him do in the courtroom, I don’t believe Ian would have killed the king. And Devin was with me . . . so that only leaves my father. He had the most to gain by the king’s murder. Plus, his antics in the courtroom smacked of more than just bias.”

  “Very good, Princess,” Stephano Di Rygazzo said with a smile. “But you forgot someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Me. Perhaps I’m the murderer.”

  Cecily held up the intercepted letter and shook her head. “You wrote ‘implanted thoughts’, not ‘implanted memory’. If you had killed the king, you would have been able to use your own memory in the process. And since you couldn’t very well approach the new king and ask for his memory of the act, you were stuck having to concoct a ‘thought’.”

  “You remember all that from fifteen years ago?”

  “It was important to me fifteen years ago, so I paid attention,” Cecily said. “I thought your magic tricks would be my salvation, my only way to escape an unwanted marriage. I thought you could help me.”

  “And I did.”

  Cecily’s eyebrows arched. “I think you could have done more.”

  Stephano Di Rygazzo shrugged. “Perhaps there is something I can do for you now?”

  “You could start by telling me what happened to Devin.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Don’t play coy with me. You’ve been inside his head. Has he always been a shape-shifter?”

  Stephano Di Rygazzo settled back in his chair and studied her shadowed visage for a long moment. “You know about that?”

  Cecily shifted in her seat. “He revealed his true nature to me just a little bit ago.” There was a hard edge to her voice, an edge he hadn’t heard before. He liked it. And then there was something about her manner. She clutched at the neck of her cloak, but even though she worked to keep herself covered, Stephano Di Rygazzo had caught a glimpse of her dress. Once it might have been lovely. Now it was torn. He could only imagine what Lord Ragget had done to her. Perhaps someday he’d dabble in her brain and search out those memories. He had a feeling he’d enjoy experiencing her pain . . . and her pleasures . . . for himself.

  “He doesn’t need to be the only one with that ability,” Stephano Di Rygazzo whispered.

  “Wait . . . You had a hand in what he did; what he has become?”

  “Cecily . . . Cecily . . . Cecily . . .” Stephano Di Rygazzo patted the air to calm her. “Is a blacksmith responsible for the men slain by the weapons he makes? No. You blame the wielder not the creator.”

  “But you don’t arm a madman and expect him to act responsibly!”

  Stephano Di Rygazzo shrugged. “Of course not.”

  “So, you knew what he’d become?”

  “I had high hopes.”

  Cecily studied him for a moment. “I can’t tell if you’re mocking me or just deriving some sort of perverted pleasure from this infuriating conversation.”

  “Why must there always be an ‘or’?”

  Cecily’s face reddened. Stephano Di Rygazzo raised a hand and patted the air again. “Perhaps you are unfamiliar with people speaking to you in such a fashion. I understand. You are a Princess after all . . . though with your grandfather and father dead and your son removed from the List of Ascension, what is to become of you, I wonder. I assume once Lord Ragget is crowned, you’ll still retain your title, but you’ll have no real power. And really, what good is a title if you can’t wave it around in people’s faces and make them jump when you tell them to?”

  He placed his case on the table and muttered the disengaging spell. The locks sprung open. “So, princess, let me get back to my original point. You can continue to be angry with me about the past . . . OR . . . you can see to your future and look at what I want to show you. I assure you, it is something I think you might find interesting, something which just recently came back into my possession.” He turned the case around and slowly lifted the lid.

  Cecily inhaled sharply. Her face and eyes reflected a faint crimson glow. “It’s . . .” She raised a hand, her fingers caressing the light as if it were fine silk. “. . . beautiful . . .”

  “It’s yours . . .” Stephano Di Rygazzo offered. There was no question in his mind she would take it. No mortal yet had refused him. The lure of such sinful power was just too great. Still, he had to make certain it was her decision. “But only if you want it . . .”

  “Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Yes . . . I want it!”

  “Excellent!”

  “But first . . .”

  Stephano Di Rygazzo hesitated. Mortals usu
ally seized the power of the Saldoleichts without any thought to question him further. “Yes?”

  “Will I be Devin’s equal?”

  He considered her question. “In a matter of speaking, yes.”

  “And you won’t mind if I use this power to seek a bit of retribution for what he did to me?”

  “Not at all.” Stephano Di Rygazzo smiled. “In fact, considering what I know now about Lord Ragget’s ancestry, I whole-heartedly encourage it.”

  chapter 48

  “Stop here!” Denton called out from the back of the prison wagon.

  Josephine pulled back on the reins and the wagon creaked to a stop a block away from Ragget’s main gate. She hadn’t been to this side of Belyne all that often; once with Edgar just to poke around and once with Neko Blood and a few members of the Lady of Shadows cast last year for some sort of fundraising party. They had performed a fight scene straight out of the show for the entertainment of the guests and spent the rest of the night in the kitchen eating and drinking beer. She looked out over the city, at the plumes of smoke and the turmoil. From up here, the chaos seemed so far away.

  Her jaw tightened again as she turned her gaze back to Ragget’s Central Tower. Just wait. It’s coming.

  She jumped down lightly and stretched her back. Before leaving Theodora’s, she’d gone into the bedroom, rummaged around in her pack and found a change of clothes. At first it had seemed odd, changing in the same room as a dead man, but then, she remembered Ian had seen her naked in the room atop the dockside warehouse and had been quite gentlemanly about it. “I wish you were alive to see me now . . .” she whispered as she stepped into her black trousers and wiggled her hips as she pulled them up. She’d trade a few moments of embarrassment for him being alive again in a heartbeat. “And to see what I will do for you.”

  The arrow that had struck her pack had punched a hole through her shirt, but it was in the back and not terribly big. The leather case with the discs was still safe. She held it up in front of his face. “If I leave Ragget’s tower alive, I’ll see to it your boy knows the truth about you.”

  She wrapped her weapon’s belt around her waist and adjusted the twin knives so they hung properly at her hips. Drawing them from their sheaths, she looked them over. Her father had crafted them to match the pair she’d used in the show last year. They felt good in her hands.

  She glanced over at Ian. “I know you asked me to do this and you won’t feel a thing, but . . . I’m still sorry . . .”

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Denton as he nudged her arm. “You see those two guards on the end nearest us?” He pointed down the street. There were four guards standing outside Ragget’s gate. “Those two are mine.”

  Josephine hefted her crossbow. “I could shoot them all from right here and no one would be the wiser.”

  Denton glared back at her as he walked away. “I said those two are mine.”

  Kylpin sidled up beside her as they all trailed after him. “That’s Zerick and Mason,” he whispered in her ear. “They used to work for Ian.”

  “They’re traitors?”

  “It’s more than that,” Kylpin said. “They killed Denton’s brother. Left him to burn in Ian’s warehouse.”

  “I see.” Josephine nodded toward the other two guards. “What about them?”

  Kylpin shrugged. “I don’t know anything about them. You?”

  She raised her crossbow and pulled the trigger twice.

  “I know they’re dead,” she answered him.

  Zerick and Mason ran for the gate, yanked it open and slipped inside. Denton got there before they could pull it completely shut and a tug-of-war began. Two against one, and yet, Denton held his own.

  “Breech!” Zerick screamed at the top of his lungs.

  Mason ran toward the estate shouting the same. Denton and his three men wrenched the gate open. Zerick turned to flee. Denton struck him down from behind, a vicious blow from his sword which took the top half of the man’s head off.

  Mason reached the mahogany doors just as they swung open and scores of men poured out. Denton pulled up short.

  Josephine strolled through the open gate followed by Kylpin, Edgar, Garett and Philson. She calmly walked past Denton and his three men and stood before the sixty or so Ragget Loyalists standing between her and the front doors.

  “My quarrel is not with you,” Josephine said. “You’re all free to go.”

  A roar of laughter erupted from the Loyalists. One stepped forward, a tall lanky fellow with a scar on his chin. He carried a pair of long curved swords in his hands. “Kill the men,” he ordered. “Leave the bitch to me.”

  Josephine raised her crossbow and shot the lanky fellow between the eyes.

  “Allow me the chance to explain this again,” she said. There was a steady droning noise in her mind. “Put down your weapons and walk out that gate behind me free men or stay here and die.”

  A couple of the men dropped their swords.

  “Pick them up!” another Loyalist shouted. He was a fat, wormy-looking Yordician with bad teeth. “We’ve sworn an oath to protect Lord Ragget. Flee and you’re as good as dead! He’ll hunt you down. You know he’ll do it.”

  The men hesitated.

  “Let us pass and I’ll put an end to Lord Ragget,” Josephine pleaded. “You can be free men!”

  “Don’t listen to her!” Bad Teeth shouted. “She’s the traitor’s whore!”

  The droning in Josephine’s head rose to a painful whine. Her teeth chattered. A tear leaked out of her right eye and slid down her cheek. “Actually, I’m his wife.”

  Bad Teeth’s eyes widened. “ATTACK!” he shrieked. “She can’t kill us all!”

  “Yes,” she whispered, swiping away the tear with the back of her fist. “I can.”

  As one, the mob of Loyalists surged forward. Josephine’s hand snapped up and her second bolt took out the rest of Bad Teeth’s bad teeth. He went down hard, but even his abrupt death did not unman the blood-thirsty Loyalists. They would not be stopped by words or shows of strength, Josephine realized. Only by death.

  An incessant drumming melody pounded inside her skull as she spun and whirled and unleashed death with each squeeze of the trigger. A line of silvery bolts blurred from the end of her crossbow. Loyalists went down at a frightening pace, hurled backwards off their feet. Mists of blood filled the air. Battle cries turned into death screams. Still the Loyalists came on, pressing closer and closer. She screamed at their defiance, at the horrific tune in her head.

  She was among them now, ducking under blows, spinning away from attacks, squeezing the trigger. Again, and again. The metallic flavor of blood filled her mouth. Crimson sprays erupted all around her. Bolts ripped through necks. Punched through hearts. Thudded into skulls. One Loyalist moved so fast she missed him twice before she shot him through the knee. That slowed him down. He stumbled, and she took out his other knee. He hurled his knife at her. She batted it away and put a third bolt in his chest.

  “Jo!” Edgar shouted.

  She spun around and found her friend backing toward the stone wall with three men closing in on him. She shot two but before she could take out the third, he knocked Edgar’s knife aside, grabbed him around the neck and hid behind him. The Loyalist pressed his own knife against Edgar’s throat.

  “Put down your bow, bitch!”

  “The gate is right there.” Josephine gestured to the man’s left. “Let him go and walk away.”

  “I said put down your bow, bitch!”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  “Then your friend here is dead.”

  “I thought he was dead once already,” Josephine raised her crossbow and took aim. “I got over it.”

  She pulled the trigger.

  chapter 49

  Captain Wolfe Straegar had given up on winning his bet with the wind mage. It didn’t really matter to him anymore if he found that actress bitch, Josephine Hewes or not. She was only one Gyunwarian half-bred mongrel. She cou
ldn’t hide forever. Eventually, she’d be rooted out and killed along with all the other filthy foreigners. All that mattered anymore was seeing Lord Devin Ragget’s dream fulfilled. The dream of a pure Yordician country, populated by pure Yordicians, ruled by pure Yordicians and taught by pure Yordicians.

  So, to that end, while he held a hand to his broken nose and tried to stop the bleeding, his water mages flattened one of the Belyne Military Academy’s main buildings and his wardens slaughtered a handful of rebellious Gyunwarian students.

  It pained him to see the old building tumble, he’d spent many years within those walls, learning from real military masters, but he took solace in the knowledge that its sacrifice meant the annihilation of both his nemesis . . . nemesises . . . nemesi? Straegar scowled. It meant both Vincent Donner and Tyran were dead.

  His second in command, a wiry Yordician sergeant by the name of Bandarue rode up as the last of the rubble settled and the deluge of water drained away down the hill toward the training ground.

  “We’ve taken a few causalities, sir,” he said jumping down from his saddle. “But Odenar and his band of twenty are dead.”

  “How many did we lose?”

  “Eight, sir.”

  “You call eight, a few?”

  “I suppose we should have taken a few less, sir, but . . . well, sir, the Gyunwarians fought well.”

  Straegar slapped the man’s face. “They did not fight well, Bandarue. You and your men fought poorly, is that understood?”

  Bandarue raised his chin and did not touch his red cheek. “Yes, of course, sir. It won’t happen again, sir. What are your orders now, sir?”

  “Gather the remainder of your men and the Yordician students and search the rest of these buildings. I want all foreigners rounded up. If any of them give you any trouble, kill them. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” He pointed. “What do you plan to do about him?”

  Straegar followed Bandarue’s direction and swore under his breath.

  Fifty feet above him, huddled against a half-finished wall was the traitor’s bastard.