The Ruin of Kings

by Jenn Lyons

  Therin looked at Kihrin for several heartbeats, his face holding the faintest suggestion of a sneer.

  “One guard dead and an escape attempt in a week. I must say I’m surprised it took you so long to try to run away.”

  Kihrin clenched and unclenched his fists. “I was in mourning.”

  “Yes, of course. Please sit down, Kihrin.”

  Kihrin sat down, thinking, At least he used my name instead of “boy.”

  Silence loomed. Therin picked up his pen and continued writing. When he finished, Therin blotted the paper, put away the pen and ink, and tucked the sheet in a drawer. Finally, he stood up and looked out the window.

  “It would be a mistake,” Therin said as he gazed out over the Blue Palace, “to think of House D’Mon as a family. We are not. Never mind that the men and women at the top are related through blood or marriage. This is a company, a corporation of skills and talents, with the singular function of providing a service for as cheaply as possible, while being paid as much as possible. It is a business. Every Royal House is, and anything else is just so many god-king tales for the common folk. I do not care who your parents really were, and I do not care whether or not Darzin’s story is true. You are god-touched and you have talent and you are therefore a useful commodity, an investment. As long as I believe you are a sound investment, your stay here may even be enjoyable. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, my lord—but Darzin’s lying. I’m not god-touched.”

  Therin almost smiled. “You misunderstand, son. You are god-touched. That is not under dispute. No matter if Darzin is your father or isn’t, at some point within four generations, one of your ancestors was a member of this House. There is a mark it leaves on our members, a mark that can be detected. I double-checked the accuracy myself. It is the singular part of Darzin’s claim that I have no doubt is absolute truth: our blood runs through your veins.”

  “So I could still be Ogenra?”

  The High Lord scoffed. “Do you know what an Ogenra even is?”

  “I thought I did, but Miya said—”

  “Lady Miya.”

  Kihrin faltered. “Excuse me?”

  “You will always call her Lady Miya.”

  Kihrin flushed with embarrassment. He fought the urge to stand straighter, tug down his clothing, act like he was being reprimanded by Surdyeh. “Yes, sir,” he said instead. “Lady Miya said that illegitimacy had nothing to do with it.”

  Therin nodded. “Indeed. All my grandfather’s children were illegitimate—he was fond of raping his slaves. An Ogenra is nothing more than a blood relative of a House who has not been formally presented to the gods. They can never inherit, never wear the name, never even wear the colors or live on our land until that pact is formalized—but since they are not members of the House, they can be elected as Voices; they can serve on the Council. They can do something we cannot: rule.”

  “Alshena mentioned something about that, but I don’t understand. I thought you do rule.”

  “We have power. It’s not quite the same thing.”

  “So technically I’m Ogenra until you present me?”

  “You were presented while you were unconscious,” Therin corrected. “It is formal and irrevocable and done. Darzin has made public claims that will be difficult to avoid fulfilling, particularly since he’s seen fit to provide the documentation that proves you aren’t even a House bastard. Necessary, that—his wife, Alshena, belongs to House D’Aramarin, and they would have used any excuse to protest a bastard being taken as heir over their daughter’s legitimate son.”

  There was nothing much that Kihrin could say to that. He studied the wood of the desk and wondered if he could get away with slipping his sight past the Veil. He could take it for granted that Therin would be a wizard too. The most expensive physickers healed using magic.

  “You don’t think he’s your father, do you?” Therin asked.

  Kihrin was quiet for a few moments. Finally, he said, “No.”

  “Why?” Therin asked, with a surprising amount of sympathy in his voice. “Is this just instinct talking? You can’t bear the idea that he might be your sire? A lot of people find that they cannot tolerate their parents, young man. It’s not that uncommon. I hated my father with every breath in me, and I know Darzin holds no love for me, a feeling which is quite mutual.”

  Kihrin shook his head. “No, there’s just no gain in it.”

  “No gain in it?”

  “No, Lord. What does he gain by claiming me as his son? He didn’t have to recognize me when we met at the High General’s house. He could have ignored me. Instead he sent assassins to kill me, and for some reason—for some reason he changed his mind and decided to save me. I should be dead. He wanted me dead. Instead, I’m his long-lost son.” Kihrin shook his head. “From all I’ve been told, including by you, people up here don’t do anything unless there’s something to gain. Even if I really am his son, what does he gain by admitting it? He already has an heir. He pisses off House D’Aramarin by pushing Galen aside. He’s clearly not sentimental. That means he has another motive.”

  Kihrin debated mentioning the Stone of Shackles, but dismissed the thought. He had no idea how much he could trust this man, and while he might be new to royalty, he was not new to the idea that it was unwise to show his hand too soon.

  Therin returned to his chair. “I too don’t know what Darzin wants, which isn’t a situation I enjoy. He could have claimed you as Ogenra and no one would have questioned it. Instead, he puts you under him as next in line for the House Seat. The cynic might argue the only thing keeping certain individuals from having Darzin killed is the thought of who would inherit after he was dead.”

  Therin leaned forward. “But sometimes we must make the best of the cards we are dealt.”

  “I’m sorry?” Kihrin was startled by Therin’s analogy, so close to his own thoughts.

  Therin said, “Even if you could prove Darzin faked the evidence, I have already accepted you into the House—so it does little good to try to find proof of Darzin’s lies except to embarrass us. And you can’t go back to the Lower Circle. You know how the Shadowdancers deal with those who murder their own.”

  Kihrin nearly stood from his chair. “What!? But I didn’t kill anyone—”

  “A Collectors Guild pawnshop owner with the adorable and no doubt accurate nickname of ‘Butterbelly’ was found dead, with two knives stuck in him. Your knives. A cutthroat named Faris is swearing to anyone who will listen he witnessed a fight between the two of you over a necklace you stole. The Shadowdancers will likely stab first and never bother to ask questions at all if they find you. Fortunately it’s unlikely the Shadow-dancers will ever come looking for Rook in the Upper Circle.”

  “What did you say?” Kihrin stood, only the most extreme self-control keeping him from fleeing the room.

  Therin smiled. “Your ‘on-the-job’ name, your street name. Publicly you were a singer, the assistant of a blind musician named Surdyeh, now deceased. Your parentage was unknown but everyone assumed, quite laughably, that you were from south of the Manol, from Doltar. I suppose that proves vané are so rare people have forgotten what they look like. You were recruited into the Shadowdancers by Ola Nathera, called Raven, who originally used you as bait in a number of successful con schemes. Eventually someone realized that you’d figured out how to perceive magic and had learned your first spell—”

  “I don’t know any spells,” Kihrin protested. “I can see past the Veil, but that’s it—”

  Therin waved the argument away with his fingers. “The trick you do to pass unseen. It’s not just wishful thinking that the guards never notice you. We call self-taught students of magic ‘witches,’ but it’s a dirty little secret that almost all of us figure out at least one spell before we’ve had formal training. Everyone who learns magic has a witch gift—the first spell, the first map—that unlocks all the others.* For most wild talents, it never goes beyond that first spell, but had Mouse lived l
onger she would have handled more advanced training. You were too good to leave wild. The spells that Keys learn are all focused, of course—ways to open different kinds of locks, how to recognize the tenyé signatures of materials commonly used for gates and lockboxes, how to remove wards put up by the Watchmen. That sort of thing.”

  Kihrin blinked and looked away. The world tilted crazily. The room suffocated. His mouth was a dusty, white, Capital street in the middle of summertime. Seconds ago, escape had been possible.

  Now it was not.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting his sense of despair. “I thought the Junk Boys controlled the Shadowdancers.”

  “Everyone does, including, amusingly enough, the Junk Boys—although you should cultivate the habit of referring to them by their proper name: House D’Evelin.” He smiled. “I took control of the Shadowdancers over twenty years ago. An indiscretion of youth.”

  “So that’s how he knew,” Kihrin muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your son. That’s how he found me so easily. He’s a Shadowdancer. You’re all Shadowdancers.”* He cursed. “Taja! All these years I’ve been working for you.”

  “No one is more embarrassed than I am. All these years I’ve been looking for you, and you were hidden right in front of me, right out in the open. I owned Ola Nathera. She was freed years before your birth, so it never occurred to me that she would know anything about what had happened to you.” He sighed.

  “Where is she?” Kihrin asked, his stomach still crawling on the floor.

  “No one seems to know. Ola disappeared the same night Surdyeh was killed. I think she ran. She’s always had a healthy sense of self-preservation. She was smart enough to realize we would have hard questions for her as soon as we found out she’d been hiding you. There would be no way she could have claimed ignorance.”

  “You’ve been looking for me for years?”

  Therin’s expression was unreadable. “Yes.”

  Kihrin felt sick. Now he understood why Ola had been so set against him meeting the General, why she had been willing to go so far as to drug him. What he didn’t understand is why she had lied in the first place. Had she planned on using him as a piece of blackmail?

  He wished he believed her only motive had been to protect him from a family she had apparently known all too well.

  “Was it just personal between you and Faris? A friendship soured?”

  Kihrin looked away. “No.”

  “What was it then?”

  He ground his teeth. “He and his friends murdered Mouse, but I couldn’t pin him for it. It would have been my word against all of theirs.”

  “I understood she was killed while committing a burglary.” Therin raised an eyebrow.

  “You call it what you like.”

  Therin chewed on that piece of news. “Then I’ll assume the little accident that Faris ran into a few years back, the one where the Watchmen ended up taking a hand, was not an accident.”

  “I was hoping he’d end up in the mines,” Kihrin said, as close as he’d ever come to admitting he’d framed another Shadowdancer.

  The corner of Therin’s mouth twitched. “Something tells me you’re going to fit in very well here.”

  The room settled into an awkward silence.

  “You didn’t have to kill him,” Kihrin finally accused in a heated whisper. If Therin D’Mon was Master of the Shadowdancers, he could have ordered Butterbelly to tell him what he needed to know. That death, at least, had been unnecessary.

  The High Lord looked up, surprised. “Kill who? Surdyeh? I didn’t.”

  “Butterbelly. You didn’t have to have Butterbelly killed.” Kihrin turned back to the High Lord. “You had a meeting with Butterbelly to buy the tsali stone he was selling. Later that same evening, he’s dead and the tsali stone’s gone. You’re telling me you didn’t do that?”

  The High Lord stared. “If I had known he had a tsali stone for sale, yes, I’d have met with him. But I wouldn’t have killed him afterward.” Therin sighed. “He was a really good fence.”

  “Then who did?”

  “One of Darzin’s agents.” Therin tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk. “I believe my son ordered it to cover up a murder he committed. What bothers me is that I don’t know why he committed the murder in the first place.”

  “Does Darzin need a reason?”

  Therin shrugged with one shoulder. “Everyone has reasons for their actions, even if they do not make any immediate sense. As you so eloquently put it, we don’t do anything unless there’s something to gain.”

  “So what do you want me to do about it? I can’t even beat Darzin when he’s unarmed.”

  “You seem to be intrinsic to his plans, so I want you to find out what he’s up to. If I am right, it will be something that may well require his removal. I do not expect you to handle that. When the time comes, I will deal with my son. If the risks seem great, understand that if you find me the proof I desire it will leave you as Lord Heir. And I can make quite certain that neither Faris nor any other Shadowdancer ever bothers you again.”

  Kihrin stared at him with skeptical eyes. Sure, he thought to himself. You’ll handle him. But he can summon up a demon prince. How will you handle that? He didn’t say anything though. He only trusted Therin slightly more than he trusted Darzin, which wasn’t saying much.

  Therin pulled a new sheet of paper from his desk, and reached for a fresh crow quill. He said, “Darzin tells me the High General gave you Valathea. That’s a rare privilege.”

  “You know about Valathea?”

  “Of course. I have even heard her played. I was disturbed to discover she’s no longer in your possession.”

  “It’s safe,” Kihrin said with a sullen voice.

  “Of course she’s safe. She’s in your room. I suggest you not be so careless with her in the future. Now go—and try not to be too exuberant with your rehearsals. Your bedroom is adjacent to mine.”

  39: IN SEARCH OF MUSIC

  (Kihrin’s story)

  Instead of going to my room, I headed to the Thriss village, looking for Szzarus.

  “Monkey!” Szzarus greeted in Thriss. I couldn’t understand most of his language, but I’d picked up that word.

  “Szzarus,” I said. “I know your people have drums. I was wondering if you have anything else? I’ve seen oboes a few times. Do you have anything with strings?”

  He flicked out his tongue and tasted the air before saying something that sounded like a question.

  “You know . . . strings?” I pantomimed strumming. It was too much to hope for a harp, but maybe someone in the village owned something that passed for a lute.

  He made an acknowledging sound and motioned for me to follow.

  The village was small and tidy, and filled with Thriss who lived on the island because of their dedication to Thaena. I’d gathered it was considered something of a monastic retreat among Szzarus’s people, so there were no children. Once a Thriss decided they’d stayed long enough, they went back to their homes on other islands or the jungles of Zherias. Some, like Szzarus, never left at all.

  He showed me inside one of the cob houses. Neatly tucked into a corner were several drums, nearly as large as the ones used at the temple: cymbals, a tambourine, an amazing array of rattles, and a long-necked instrument with a deep squat bowl and a spike at the base. He motioned to the last one.

  I picked it up gently. It only had three strings, and as I plucked them, Szzarus handed me a wooden bow strung with silk. The silk was too loose to be any good for bowing across the strings with tension. I had no idea if it was broken or if there was some trick to holding it that I didn’t understand. Szzarus gestured toward the long-necked instrument.

  I sighed and handed it back to him. “Sorry, big guy, but I don’t think I can use this. At least not without a tutor.”

  Szzarus shrugged and hung the bow from one of its tuning pegs.

  “What kind of instrument are you looking
for?” Teraeth asked.

  I resisted the urge to leap a foot into the air. He must have used magic to sneak up on me.

  “What are you doing here?” I lifted my head and glared at Teraeth. “We’ve nothing to say to each other.”

  He leaned an arm against the hut door. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “No, you aren’t,” I snapped. “What is this? Because I didn’t leave with you the way Khaemezra ordered, you followed me back here? I don’t need the company, so why don’t you fuck off.”

  Teraeth just grinned, and said something to Szzarus. I didn’t catch most of it, although he did use the word “monkey.” Szzarus responded, laughed, and left the room.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth: you don’t need his help.” Teraeth straightened. “Shorissa owns a lute, and Lonorin keeps a zither. As it happens, Lonorin thinks you’re adorable, so if you ask, I’m sure she’d be willing to lend it to you. See? I’m helping.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “I don’t believe being one disqualifies me from doing the other. Either is better than what you’re doing right now, which is being a child.”

  “I’m being—” I sucked in a deep breath, held it to the count of three, and then released it in a hiss that any Thriss would have applauded. “I was being adult and mature and dealing with the reality of my situation. And then what happens? First, your mother sends Kalindra away. Then, instead of the sword trainer Khaemezra promised, she brings in ‘Doc.’ I think we can both agree that he possesses the sort of natural charm I wouldn’t cross the Senlay to save from crocodiles.”

  Teraeth didn’t laugh, but he made that almost-smile I’d come to interpret as the next best thing. “He knocked me down a few rungs, didn’t he? I would’ve thought you’d like him for that.”

  I scoffed. “Maybe I don’t want the competition.”

  “So, let me help you.”

  “Help me?” My laugh was unfriendly and bitter. “I don’t trust you or Khaemezra. Tyentso’s the only person around here who’s played straight with me. What does that say, considering she’s the witch who gaeshed me in the first place?” I looked back at the instruments. I couldn’t play any of those without a lot of practice. “Maybe Szzarus can give me lessons.” I moved to go past Teraeth.