Destin eyed the furious young emperor, wondering whether Jarat still wore his talisman every day, as Destin recommended and Jarat’s father, the king, had commanded.
Jarat’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Colonel, I don’t want to hear one word leaked about this to anyone. I don’t want to give these northerners any reason to think they can drive us out.”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” Destin said, backing toward the door, eager to escape without being thrown in gaol. Bringing bad news to the king could be a capital crime, as well.
“One more thing.” Still scowling, Jarat stalked over to the door and yanked it open. Outside was a swarm of blackbirds. Jarat motioned them inside.
Destin eyed them warily, his heart beating faster. Jarat opened a drawer in the sideboard and pulled out a glittering silver object.
Destin recognized it instantly. His gut twisted.
“Colonel, we have decided that it is important to handle our magical assets in a consistent fashion now that our numbers have expanded. It sends the wrong message to have an officer of this court walking around uncollared when we insist that all northern mages be restrained.”
Destin tasted bitter defeat on his tongue as he eyed the king and his flock of blackbirds. Jarat wouldn’t have made this move if they were not all wearing talismans.
“Consistency is an important principle, Your Eminence,” Destin said quickly, “but—”
“We also believe that this will improve morale among our military mages,” Jarat said, “and inspire a sense of comradeship with you, their leader. As you know, we’ve had serious attrition among our gifted forces.”
And you think this will help? Destin thought. Gerard had been a cruel, vicious bastard, but he’d never put a collar around Destin’s neck.
“You make a good point, Your Eminence,” Destin said, thinking fast, “but have you considered the fact that this might limit my ability to protect you against magical attack?”
“Your ability to work magic will be unimpaired, so long as you remain a loyal servant of the crown.”
“As I have been since I came into your father’s service,” Destin said. “Which is why I’m disappointed to have—”
“Besides, malicious magic will cease to be a problem when I have collared all of the gifted in the Realms. Without the witch queendom to serve as a sanctuary and support for them, we will extinguish the lawless practice of magic and assure that all mages serve the empire and the church.”
Destin tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. “If in any way I’ve fallen short, I beg leave to try and correct this on my own.”
“This is not a negotiation, Colonel,” Jarat said, that sulky look reappearing. He extended the open collar toward Destin. “Kneel.”
Destin looked around the room, seeking escape. It was tempting to blast a hole in the wall and flee through it. But where would he go? He had no allies and friends outside these walls, and few enough inside. There was only Evan, if he still lived.
Magery was power, but it was only one kind. A fugitive wields no power at court. He needed to be in the game in order to play it.
Destin sank to his knees, bitter tears stinging his eyes. Jarat fumbled a bit as he fastened the collar around Destin’s neck.
He’s nervous, Destin thought, and he should be.
“There, now,” Jarat said heartily. “Not so bad, is it? You know much more about these collars than I do. But, rest assured, you have nothing to worry about as long as you serve me well.”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” Destin said, clearing his throat, clearing the murder off his face.
“You may rise,” Jarat said.
Destin rose, by now confident that his face was as pure as any saint’s. The blackbirds were all exchanging relieved looks, happy that the task had been accomplished without a magical standoff.
Jarat held up the key. “You may rest assured that I will keep this in a safe place,” he said, tucking it into his waistcoat. “This in no way implies a lack of trust in you. In fact, this sacrifice on your part will result in your advancement. I expect that our gifted forces will vastly increase with the recruitment of northern mages. As general and commander of our gifted forces, you will play a key part in the pacification of the north and the protection of the empire.” Jarat’s expression said, There, now! See what you get?
I get a big fat fly on a pile of scummer, Destin thought. All my nightmares have come true. Is that the price of patricide? He’d spent a lifetime avoiding the traps his father had set for him, and then fallen headfirst into this one.
“Thank you for your confidence in me, Your Eminence,” Destin said.
The boy emperor looked as if he might actually clap Destin on the shoulder, but at the last minute turned it into a salute.
Destin returned the salute. “Now, Your Eminence, if there’s nothing else—?”
Jarat’s triumphant expression faded as he possibly remembered that he’d just lost a deepwater port and his capital city. “Tell Bellamy I want to see him now,” he snapped. “We have work to do. And don’t forget—fix the thing with the girl.” The emperor waved him out.
57
THE WOLF AND THE HAWK
As he left Jarat’s small council chamber, Destin seethed with anger, mostly directed at himself.
You’re so damned smart, he thought. Moving pieces on the game board, believing you’re one step ahead of everyone else, fully confident you’ve already won.
But he’d been ambushed like any farmer at the midsummer market, by a—how did the general put it—by a candy-assed boy who can’t even dress himself. The general must be laughing himself silly in hell.
Ever since Destin had slipped free from the general’s control, he’d sworn that he would never again be under the thumb of a tyrant. He would make his own choices, commit his own sins, for better or worse. It would be his call, his fault, his success or failure. He might serve the king, but he could, if he chose, serve another king. Or serve no one at all, accepting the consequences.
He touched the collar, still somehow shocked to find it there. He was trapped, once again, with no good choices on the table. If Destin ran away to Carthis, the emperor could still reach across the sea and torture or kill him.
And now he was on his way to fix the thing with the girl. He had desperately wanted to get there ahead of Olivette, but he’d probably failed at that, too.
At least Jarat was not keeping his bride-to-be in the dungeons—not yet, anyway. But she was locked away behind several sets of doors in the family wing of the palace. As he got close, he could hear raised voices—an argument of some sort between the queen regent and Olivette.
Well, good, Destin thought. He was humiliated, smarting, more than ready to mix it up with someone.
“You will not take her!” Mellony shouted. “The emperor gave me orders to speak to her, and that is what I’m doing.”
“I have orders from the emperor, too,” Olivette said. “Let go of her or I’ll call in the guard.”
Nodding to the blackbirds outside, Destin slammed open the door to Julianna’s chamber to find a tug-of-war going on between the queen regent and Olivette, the inquisitor. Between them was Julianna, like a child’s rag doll. The contenders looked up as Destin entered.
“Colonel Karn, tell this man to leave us alone,” Mellony said, her voice quivering with rage or fear or both. “He has no right to lay hands on the queen of the realm.”
You’re going to learn that queens have very little status or protection in the empire, Destin thought. Queen regents, even less.
“I’m taking her downstairs, Colonel,” Olivette said.
General, Destin could have said, but it was a rank he had no interest in claiming.
“Let go of her and get out,” Destin said.
“You heard the emperor,” Olivette said, broadening his stance.
Torture and the threat of torture could be useful tools at times. But Olivette seemed more fond of the process than the result.
“The emperor said to use stronger measures if persuasion doesn’t work,” Destin said. “I’ll definitely call you in if your specialized services are needed.”
Olivette glared at him, as if debating whether to challenge Destin’s version of events. Then finally descended to bluster. “If you weren’t a mage, I would—”
“Happily, I am a mage, and I am losing patience,” Destin said, fingering his amulet, hoping Olivette didn’t notice his new collar. If he did, and made a comment about it, Destin might have another body to bury. “Now get out.”
As soon as the door closed behind Olivette, Mellony said, “Thank you, Colonel. Your arrival was—”
“What’s wrong with her?” Destin asked, putting two fingers under Julianna’s chin and tipping her face up, looking into her blank eyes. “She looks like she’s in a trance.”
“She’s been like this since—since her engagement announcement,” Mellony said, guiding her daughter to a chair. “She hasn’t spoken, smiled, or reacted to anything. I think she’s just . . . overwhelmed or grief-stricken or—”
“Leave us,” Destin said abruptly.
“Colonel, please, let me help,” Mellony said. “Perhaps together we could—”
“No,” Destin said. “I need to question her alone.”
Mellony drew herself up. “It is inappropriate for the emperor’s fiancée to be questioned unchaperoned by someone who—”
“Don’t push me,” Destin said. “I am not your swiving hero. The difference between me and Olivette is that he enjoys hurting people, and I don’t. Usually. You and your daughter should count yourselves lucky that I am here. Now go, before I call the guards to carry you out.”
She went.
Destin walked around the room, soundproofing it. Then he sat down opposite Julianna. He rubbed his chin, considering how to begin. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing,” he said.
She didn’t move, didn’t change expression.
“Jarat is cruel to the core, and Olivette is worse. He’ll hurt you in ways you cannot imagine. It will be horrible and messy, and in the end, Jarat will get his way. That’s no way to begin a marriage. It sets a poor precedent.”
Julianna said nothing, though her lip might have quivered a bit.
Destin reached for her hands, gripped them firmly, and opened the channels between them. He was met by a torrent of rage, grief, and betrayal that all but made his hair stand on end. Sometimes that was the way it worked—like a dam bursting—in people who had been keeping secrets for so long.
“Tell me about Finn,” he said.
Now tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “People will think I was in on this—that I knew all along what they intended. But I did not. I swear by the Maker that I did not.”
“I believe you,” Destin murmured.
“I’m supposed to be the queen’s spymaster, and I did not see this coming,” she said, her voice thick with tears.
“Sometimes that happens.” He, of all people, could attest to that.
“I loved Finn, and yet after he was wounded, it was as if he was two people. Sometimes he would be his normal self, and sometimes I would look at him and—see someone else.” She shivered. “They tell me he did . . . terrible things.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Destin said. When she looked at him through narrowed eyes, he continued, “I’m serious. It wasn’t. It’s complicated, and there’s no time to go into it now, but when this is all over, I’ll explain it to you. In the meantime, it’s all right to keep on loving him, and remember him the way he was before.” After a long pause, he added, “But I can’t say the same for your mother.”
Julianna hung her head. “Blood and bones,” she whispered. “She has always been so jealous of Aunt Raisa, though she hides it well. For some reason, she thinks every bad thing that happened to her, every loss along the way, was because of her sister. She was close to my grandmother Queen Marianna—closer than Raisa, the princess heir. I think she began to believe that she was better suited to the throne. At one point, when everyone thought Princess Raisa was dead, Mother came close to being crowned queen. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven Raisa for turning up alive.
“After I was born, she kept trying to reclaim what she’d lost through me. She was critical of Princess Alyssa, always comparing us and suggesting I would be a much better queen. I thought she had finally accepted the fact that I was happy in the role of diplomat and director of intelligence. And then to find out that, all along, she was plotting against her own family. That list of the names of the dead that she had read at the reception—I think she had a hand in all of those. It was as if she was reading a list of her victims. Except she should have included my cousin Hanalea and my uncle Han.” Her tears were falling on their joined hands.
Destin had to ask. “Are you sure you didn’t know? When people kept dying, didn’t you ever suspect that Mellony had a hand in it?”
“I guess we find ways to ignore the things that would destroy us. Every once in a while, something would raise a question. But then I would let it go.” She shook her head. “I’m so ashamed.”
“Julianna. I learned a long time ago that it’s not our fault if our parents are monsters. We can’t take responsibility for that, or we’re twice damaged. All we can do is try to go forward in a different way.” He let go of her hands and sat back. “What you need to do now is agree to marry Jarat, wear his ring, appear in public with him, and pretend to be enthusiastic about the whole thing. That will buy both of us some time.”
“No,” Julianna said, folding her arms. “I can’t.”
“Lady sul’Mander, I realize how difficult this—” Destin broke off at her expression. “What is it?”
“Nobody’s called me that until now. Everyone wants to pretend it didn’t happen—that I never married Finn.”
“Of course it happened,” Destin said. “Now. Lady sul’Mander. How far are you willing to go to prevent this new marriage from going forward?” As it happened, he himself would go pretty far to ruin the emperor’s wedding day.
“I would rather die,” Julianna said. “I will never allow that arrogant, despicable boy to touch me.” She sat thinking for a moment. “I have an idea—one that will prevent the marriage and ruin Jarat’s wedding day and leave me alive at the end of it. But I’ll need your help.” Lifting her chin, she gazed at him, as if taking his measure.
“Believe me, Lady sul’Mander, I will do anything I can to further that agenda,” Destin said.
She eyed him. “I must admit, Colonel, that I cannot figure out your agenda.”
“That’s the way I like it,” Destin said. “Now, please.” He gestured for her to go on.
“Here’s what I have in mind,” Julianna said. “But I’ll need Shadow’s help, and Speaker Jemson’s, too.”
58
INTO THE VALE
It had taken some fast talking for Hal to persuade Fletcher and Cooper to raise Celestine’s flag over the city of Delphi. It took more fast talking to persuade his officers to march north into the Fells with the bloodsworn army.
Fast talking had never been Hal’s strength.
“We’re just going to surrender without a fight?” Mercier had said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know they’ve got the numbers, but the bulk of our army’s up at the mines, and we have good walls between us and the bloodsworn. We can hold ’em off for a while, and our men on the outside can harry them from the north.”
“You’re right, but that pins us down here. We can’t afford the time for a siege, and we can’t afford to lose any of our men in skirmishes,” Hal said. “Besides, it’s not exactly a surrender.”
“How is
it not a surrender?” Fletcher folded his arms, scowling.
“Because the Patriots will remain in control of the city, with our military as support. The only thing that changes is we raise another banner.”
Mercier shook his head. “I don’t get it. Either we surrender the city, or we don’t.”
“Or you pretend to surrender the city,” somebody said.
They all swung around in time to see Gray move into the lamplight.
“Gentlemen,” Hal said, “I’d like to introduce Captain Lyssa Gray of the army of the Fells. You may know her as the Gray Wolf.”
Their eyes went wide. Remy made the sign of Malthus.
“The Gray Wolf is a woman?” Marc DeJardin said, vastly amused. “She’s not even a mage. What is the world coming to?”
Gray shook hands with each of them. “I got to know—and trust—your king while he was a captive in the north,” she said. “After the empress took Chalk Cliffs, I infiltrated the Carthian army and was assigned to the southern campaign. Matelon and I have made a deal to join together to kick Jarat out of Fellsmarch and rescue the hostages. Then we will drive Celestine out of the Realms.”
By now, Hal’s officers were looking shell-shocked, and he didn’t blame them.
Gray knew how to press an advantage. “It’s important to keep Celestine in the dark about this as long as possible,” she said. “Because my army is blood-bound to her, they have to believe that we are following her commands. Once she realizes that she has been betrayed, she will move swiftly. Her resources are all but endless. We need to handle Jarat before then.”
“I love how you say, ‘handle Jarat,’ as if it’s like swatting a fly,” Remy said.
“Watch me,” Gray said, with a grim smile.
Hal’s officers looked at each other. He could tell that they were impressed with what she had to say. It didn’t hurt that nearly everyone in the army of Arden had heard legends and tales about the Gray Wolf.
“We know a lot of the men fighting for Jarat,” Mercier said. “The native-borns, at least. General Bellamy’s a good man. I hate the thought of going up against them.”
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