The Ruin of Kings

by Jenn Lyons

  26: UNHAPPY REUNION

  (Talon’s story)

  Someone pounded on the door.

  “Damn it all. Go away!” Ola shouted.

  “Ola! Ola! Come quick.” Morea’s voice rang clear and loud from the other side.

  “Curse it.” Ola rolled out of bed and threw on a robe, ignoring the protests of the woman she dislodged. She stomped over to the door and tossed it open. “What is it, girl? This best be important . . .”

  Morea stood in the hallway, barely dressed. Tears streaked her face. “They . . . he . . . oh goddess . . . he . . .”

  “Calm down, child. Calm down. What happened?”

  “Kihrin!” Morea pointed down to Ola’s apartments with a shaking hand. “He’s gone!”

  “Kihrin? Where’d that boy get off to . . .?” Ola’s brows drew together in confusion. “Oh hells. The General. If he—” Without another word, Ola grabbed Morea’s arm and half-pushed, half-dragged the slave girl back to Ola’s apartment.

  Ola marched inside and stopped as she saw the candles, the overturned furniture, and the gooey mass of something wet and bloody that might once have been a person. Blood covered the back wall and the curtain of jade beads. Someone had been murdered here. Recently murdered in a particularly messy fashion. She fought down bile. It wasn’t Kihrin. It couldn’t be Kihrin. Who then?

  “Morea, what happened—” She turned just in time to catch a punch to her jaw that flung her against a cabinet.

  Morea examined her knuckles. “Late again. You’re always late, Ola. I haven’t quite ever been able to forgive you for that. Don’t think I didn’t try.”

  “Morea?” Ola wiped the blood from her face and stared at the dancing girl, aghast.

  “Not exactly.” Morea’s shape flowed in front of Ola’s eyes, until she looked like a beautiful woman with honey-gold skin and lovely, long brown hair.

  “Lily?” Ola shook her head. “Lyrilyn? No, you can’t be! I saw you—”

  “Die?” Talon smiled. “Oh, I died all right. And yet . . . here we are. Let me explain. Oh, better yet: let me show you.”

  Ola tried to run, but Talon was on her in seconds. She forced Ola against the wall, hands trapping her own. Even though her attacker was shorter than Ola and looked weaker, Ola couldn’t free herself. Talon clamped her mouth over Ola’s—a terrible kiss that drew all the strength from Ola’s body.

  Ola looked at her attacker and flinched. The face kissing her changed. It wasn’t Lyrilyn’s heart-shaped flower, but a black-skinned Zheriaso, wild and untamed. It was her face; the face Ola had worn twenty years ago before age and easy living had stolen her appeal. It was the face that in some part of her mind she remembered still, whenever she looked back at her reflection in a mirror or reminisced about the “good old days.”

  Ola tried to break away, but the hands holding her in place were strong as iron. Ola tried to scream, but this monster’s kiss was a metal vise, crushing her.

  A flowing, rushing torrent of memories, thoughts, feelings, and sins overtook her and left Ola drowning. She felt a terrible sense of violation and shame, as if every secret in her soul had been plucked from the darkest corners of her mind and tossed onto the sidewalk outside. She felt this monster who wore her face dig inside her mind.

  Then the sensation stopped. Ola was released, lifted into the air, and thrown. She landed like an overstuffed pillow on a throw rug. Ola moaned and tried to crawl away, but strong hands grabbed her by her hair and threw her onto her back. The figure standing above her was once again Lyrilyn.

  Her attacker smiled. “You see?”

  “You’re a mimic?” Ola whispered. She had heard of them, dark rumors told in darker dens of iniquity. Creatures who stole the forms of loved ones to stalk their victims. Demons of flesh who sold their services to the highest bidder as spies and assassins.

  Talon winked at her. “It’s not what we call ourselves, but close enough.”

  “This isn’t happening. Lyrilyn was human—”

  “Yes, that’s true, lover. I was once. But you were LATE,” Talon snarled. She crouched over Ola, grabbed her by the hair, and yanked her onto her feet. She pulled Ola over to one of the chairs in the room and forced her to sit in it. “Now I am what the Stone of Shackles made me, something you helped create. But you’re right. This isn’t happening. This is just a dreadful nightmare where Lyrilyn shows up to remind you of your past sins. You know. The part where you did nothing; where you just stood there and watched as that monster murdered your precious Lyrilyn.”

  Fear choked Ola. This was worse than a nightmare, worse than she could imagine. “Please! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “I forgive you,” Talon said.

  Ola blinked. “You do?”

  “Yup. Fortunately, since I was wearing the Stone of Shackles—and how lucky was that? Taja loves me, doesn’t she? So when the mimic murdered me, I swapped bodies with my killer, which makes me . . .” She put a hand to her chest. “. . . the mimic. I’ll admit, it took a little while to get used to it. Mimics are disgusting. You have no idea.”

  The fear in Ola’s eyes deepened to terror. “What could I do?” she whispered. “It all happened so fast. I didn’t know—” Ola screamed as Talon hit her in the face several times.

  Talon’s expression was sedate, even calm, as she showed Ola the blood staining her knuckles. She wiped her hand off on Ola’s face. Then, holding the weaker woman down so she couldn’t move, Talon licked the blood off Ola’s skin. Ola tried to shake her head, squirm, do anything, but she couldn’t move.

  Talon said in a conversational tone of voice, “You knew, Ola. You’ve always known, but you’ve always been too busy protecting yourself to protect anyone else, least of all me. Remember what we promised each other, late at night in our beds? True love forever? Yet when you had the means to buy your freedom did you even think of me? No. You let me rot.”

  Ola shook her head. “Therin didn’t own you, or I might have had a chance. Pedron did, degenerate Pedron. There was no chance of getting you free from him.”

  Talon’s expression turned sympathetic and understanding. “Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night, love? I was so naïve. I didn’t just trust you once, I trusted you twice. I loved you. And where were you when I needed you?”

  Ola licked her lips nervously. “I didn’t—”

  “I am very disappointed in you, ducky. Very disappointed.”

  Ola whimpered. “You’re insane.”

  Talon looked at the older woman as if she had just said something profound. “You know, lover, I’ve often wondered that myself. Am I crazy? It’s possible the experience drove me quite out of my mind.”

  She smiled and shrugged as if she accepted the question was beyond her ability to answer. “Of course, suddenly absorbing 5,372 separate and distinct lifetimes in a matter of minutes is bound to put a little fuzz around the edges of any person’s mental faculties.” Talon smiled.

  “You—” Ola started again. “You’ve killed that many people?”

  “Me?” Talon laughed. “No, of course not. I can only account for 738 personally. Ooo, 741. I completely forgot to add tonight’s tally.” She made little circling motions in the air as if she were adding figures on a chalkboard. “The mimic who murdered me on the other hand . . . well, he was very old.” She turned back to Ola and squatted next to her chair. “Do you know I used to be vané?” She caressed a hand over her hip. “Not me personally. I was born over in the Copper Quarter. This body, I mean, started out life as vané. I would never have thought that. I always assumed mimics were some kind of demon, but it turns out they’re some kind of vané. Do you think Miya would laugh at the joke?”

  “Please,” Ola whispered. “Kihrin? Where is he? What have you done with him?”

  “He’s safe. The very finest healers in the Empire are seeing to that.”

  “Oh no. Not them.”

  “Oh yes. Them. It’s all arranged. Darzin’s taking care of it.” Talon laughed at
Ola’s expression. “I work for Darzin now. Isn’t that funny?” She put her hands on either side of her mouth and stage-whispered, “He has no idea I used to be Lyrilyn.”

  Ola tried to explain, tried to reason with her. Lyrilyn . . . after all these years. “Please. His father—”

  “Oh, don’t worry so; Kihrin will be fine. Surdyeh and that new dancing girl of yours? Not so fine.”

  “Oh goddess . . .”

  Talon nodded and tapped Ola’s cheek affectionately. “Yes, exactly. That’s what I always used to say. The goddess wouldn’t give us more than we can handle.” She tilted her head in a position of contemplation. “Of course, that must mean I really am sane. Hmmm?” Again, she shrugged. “Good, bad, crazy, sane. Doesn’t matter. I’ll let you in on a great secret, Ola. For ol’ times sake.” Talon winked at Ola.

  “Yes?” Ola asked hesitantly. She knew a trap when she saw one.

  Talon leaned in close. She leaned in until her mouth rested right next to Ola’s ear and whispered, “You all taste just like mutton.”

  Ola closed her eyes, shivering.

  Talon leaned back again, laughing.

  “I never meant to hurt you, Lily. You have to believe that.” Reasoning with Lyrilyn was her only chance. If she could convince Lily to let her go . . .

  Talon nodded amiably. “As much as I have dreamt of squeezing the life from your throat, my dear dark beauty, I see that’s true. You didn’t mean to hurt me. But you did. And that’s nothing compared to what you were going to do to that little baby boy.”

  Ola felt her stomach lodge in her throat. “No,” she protested. “That’s not true. I raised him like he was my own child.”

  Talon’s eyes narrowed. In that same instant, Ola threw herself past the mimic to reach the door. Talon grabbed Ola by the throat and lifted her into the air. Ola made grating, gasping sounds as she tried to draw breath. Finally, Talon released her. She fell to the floor in a sobbing pile.

  “Ola, Ola, Ola.” Talon walked around her, standing one foot on the matron’s back to push her down flat. “Don’t lie to someone who is reading your mind, sweet. Do you know why I didn’t look for you, afterward?”

  “No,” Ola sobbed, her voice all but lost under the sound of her crying.

  Talon bent down and said, “I didn’t look for you because I—knew—you wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay in the Capital. You had one job to do. One. It never even occurred to me that you would actually LEAVE Kihrin in this shithole.” Talon punctuated her last sentence with an angry kick to Ola’s side.

  Ola held her stomach, gasping as she rolled into a fetal ball. In between sobbing breaths, she gathered enough strength to pull herself up. “If you can read minds, you know I’m not lying. How safe would Kihrin have been, back with his mother’s family? With an uncle who’d tried to kill his mother and you could be damn sure would do the same to him? Surdyeh said the stone wouldn’t allow anyone to find him. He was safe here. Safer than he would have been anywhere else.”

  “Surdyeh? Surdyeh said that, did he?” Talon glanced over her shoulder, toward the bedroom. “I don’t believe I had the pleasure before I killed him. You meet this ‘Surdyeh’ down here in the Lower Circle?”

  Ola closed her eyes as sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. The casual way Lyrilyn spoke of his death left her with no doubt she’d really done it. Surdyeh was dead. “Yes, he—he worked for me.”

  A small frown crossed Talon’s face. “And you trusted him? You trusted him enough to tell him about the Stone of Shackles? Since when have you been that stupid?”

  Talon’s words were a slap across the face, a bracing reminder of Ola’s own well-honed paranoia. “He—” Ola inhaled with a sob, and a new expression crossed her face: confusion. Why had she trusted Surdyeh? It seemed ridiculous now. Her brow furrowed. She frowned in concentration as she tried to remember when and where she’d first met the man.

  “We were friends—he would never betray me—” Her speech faltered, and she again halted in bafflement. Never betray her? When had she ever in her life thought a person immune to betrayal from another?

  “Huh,” Talon said. “I know you weren’t lovers. And you couldn’t have known him for longer than you’ve owned the Club. Yet you trusted him. Doesn’t that seem odd? You, who have never trusted anyone in your whole life?”

  Ola swallowed, half turning. She rubbed her upper lip. How had they met? “He made so much sense—keep Kihrin here, it would be the last place anyone would look—it was so easy to talk to Surdyeh—”

  “He was right, but the fact that you believed him—why that’s interesting, don’t you think?” Talon grinned and chucked Ola under the chin. “Sweet cheeks, don’t you see? Someone cast a spell on you!”

  Ola felt her blood chill in her veins. She looked up at Talon with wide eyes. “I didn’t know—”

  “Oh, I know, sweetheart.” Talon put her arms around Ola and helped the shaking woman to her feet, her hands clamped like manacles to keep Ola from running or collapsing. “I know. You feel violated. Used. Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. But you should be grateful. Honestly you should light a candle to Surdyeh’s memory every chance you have: because of that enchantment, I’m not going to kill you quite yet. Isn’t that nice of me?”

  Ola’s lips trembled. “I didn’t know he was a wizard.”

  Talon patted Ola on the head, and Ola felt her skin crawl as she realized that Talon still had both arms wrapped around her. “Oh sweetmeat, it’s not like you had any way to tell. And blind people have a real incentive to learn to see beyond the First Veil. So, isn’t that interesting? Surdyeh made very sure you weren’t going anywhere, but why? What was his game? And who was holding his leash? I’m dying to know who.”

  “Gendal.” The name came to her lips before she was even aware what she was saying. “I met him the same night I met Gendal.” She shuddered.

  Talon’s eyes widened. “The old Emperor? That Gendal? Just so we’re clear . . .”

  “That Emperor. But Lily, it was years before you fled with that baby.” Pure shock drove Ola back to her seat again, and this time Talon didn’t try to stop her. “If it was a setup, how could the Emperor have possibly known so far in advance?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, but I plan to find out. The boy doesn’t know, does he? You never told him about his precious family.”

  Ola shook her head.

  Talon shrugged. “His own fault for trusting you.” She looked at her nails. “Trust is for the weak. Anyway, you’re not going to see Kihrin again, you understand?”

  Ola had no problem understanding. She didn’t even disagree. If Talon took her back to the Blue Palace, her most likely fate was an extended stay with one of their best torturers before she was finally allowed the luxury of death. “Yes—”

  Talon tsked. “Yes . . . what?” Ola saw Talon’s hands change into something like claws, and she shuddered in terror.

  Ola looked at the mimic who had once been her dearest love, the woman she had once dreamed of running away with to freedom. None of her dreams had ever gone like this. “Yes . . . Mistress.” She sobbed in shame.

  “Good doggie.” Talon pulled Ola up from the chair. “And remember, bitch: if you don’t do exactly what I say, I won’t bother knocking you unconscious before I eat you alive.”

  27: SISTER KALINDRA

  (Kihrin’s story)

  “I know the ceremonies can be a little dramatic, but we’re a nice group of people once you get to know us.” Kalindra had picked a native island flower and was idly shredding it to bits with her fingernails as we walked.

  “A little dramatic? That’s what you call a human sacrifice to the Goddess of Death? Not creepy or terrifying? Just . . . ‘a little dramatic’?”

  “Teraeth isn’t human.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Semantics.” I paid no attention to where we were going. Somewhere in the jungle.

  She smiled and looked away. “You must have questions.”

  “A thousand. I just don�
�t know if you’re going to be able to answer them.”

  She tossed the flower she’d been destroying off the edge of the path. “Try me.”

  I ticked off the questions on my fingers. “Where are we? Who has my gaesh? Does Thaena really wander around the island personally, or do I still need to worry about Relos Var showing up to pay me a visit? What’s with the snake people? What’s going to happen to the rest of the crew of The Misery? Is Khaemezra a dragon too, and if she is, what does that make Teraeth?”

  Kalindra cleared her throat. “When you said you had a thousand questions, I assumed you weren’t being literal.”

  “This? This is just a warm-up. Wait until I really get going.”

  She laughed and continued walking. “I don’t know who has your gaesh—probably Mother. You should ask her. ‘Here’ is the island of Ynisthana, Thaena’s personal sanctum of power, which means Relos Var won’t show up here if he knows what’s good for him. The snake people are called the Thriss, and they have lived here for centuries. Did I miss anything?”

  “The crew of The Misery,” I offered. “And ‘Mother’ being a dragon.”

  She paused for a moment, pursed her lips, looked off into the mist. “The crew will be offered a chance to join us or they may return to Zherias when the next ship arrives. They won’t be harmed; the only sacrifices we practice are voluntary. Khaemezra is not a dragon—but isn’t magic wonderful? She is the most powerful wizard I’ve ever known. Powerful enough to change into a dragon.” Kalindra grinned. “Which makes Teraeth exactly what you think he is: insufferably pretty.”

  She winked at me and continued walking, now turning off the main trail to a narrow but well-used, winding path.

  I let that last bit slide without commentary save a roll of my eyes and then ran after her to keep up. I didn’t think Teraeth was pretty. Insufferable? Yes. Pretty? No.

  Definitely not.

  “Go back to the part about this being Thaena’s personal sanctuary. If I stay, am I going to run into the Goddess of Death herself? How does that work? Is it polite to avert my eyes? Would I be expected to bow if we run into each other on one of the trails?”