The Ruin of Kings

by Jenn Lyons

  Kihrin bit his lip. “Is this Jarith Milligreest’s card game?”

  Thurvishar paused, his eyebrows drawn together. He gave a single nod.

  “I was invited to that,” Kihrin admitted. “The door with the peacock feather vase, right?”

  “Indeed,” Thurvishar said. “Follow me then. I’ll show you the way.”

  65: HANGOVER CURES

  (Kihrin’s story)

  “Wait! Gadrith!” I said as I sat up quickly.

  Too quickly. My head swam, and I fought back the urge to throw up.

  “Don’t shout,” Tyentso mumbled from a few feet away. “That’s not a name I want to hear when I’m this hungover. Or ever. Ever would be best.”

  Teraeth groaned and smashed a pillow over his head.

  We’d ended up on the brick-lined patio, next to the fire pits. I’d only meant to check on Tyentso and make sure she was all right after the ritual, but when I found her, Teraeth was already there. He’d broken out several bottles of vané wine because “a successful Return from a Maevanos should be celebrated.” Then Doc found us, and he’d brought a whole tun of the potent coconut rum the Thriss distill.

  It all got a bit fuzzy after that.

  “Oh, my head.” I rubbed my thumbs into my temples. “No, I meant . . . with everything that happened . . . ow. My eyeballs ache.” What had I been going on about? I was pretty sure it had been something important.

  Someone dropped an entire rack of cymbals near my head, or at least it felt like it when the tray clattered to the ground. I swear I felt the vibrations in my bones. Given the noises Tyentso and Teraeth made in protest, I wasn’t alone in that opinion.

  “Pathetic,” Doc said, although the smile on his face betrayed his amusement. “I would expect a D’Mon to be better at handling their liquor. Don’t they have a spell for this?”

  “Six months,” I protested. “I was only at the Blue Palace for six months. Miya didn’t have a chance to teach me how to cure hangovers. Is that tea?”

  “I have rice porridge too,” Doc said. “Wake up, lovebirds. Come eat breakfast. You’ll feel better.”

  I blinked and looked around. We’d all passed out in various states around the fire pit, dragging over the large pillows that the Brotherhood kept for just that purpose. The important thing of note, however, was that we were fully dressed in the same clothing each of us had worn the night before. That made it unlikely that any sexual shenanigans had occurred.

  Good.

  “Ha ha,” I said, taking his offered hand. “How much did we drink?”

  “All of it,” Doc said. “It was amazing to watch.”

  “Would you please shut up,” Tyentso groaned. “I hate you so much.”

  I started to stumble over to her, then found myself sitting down on a bit of brick edging. I exhaled and tried to stop the world from spinning.

  “Yeah, you think it’s bad,” Tyentso mumbled. “Just wait until you’re my age. My body can’t handle liquor like it used to.” She paused to glare at Doc. “Why are you sober? You matched us drink for drink, you old bastard.”

  “I’ve owned a bar for over twenty years. I know when to cut myself off.”

  “Gadrith,” I repeated.

  Teraeth sighed and removed the pillow. “What about him?”

  “So much happened . . .” I grimaced. Everything was loud and bright and horrible. “Note to self: don’t mix vané wine and rum.”

  “Note to self: don’t mix vané wine and life.” Teraeth stood, slowly and with a care suggesting he too was having trouble with his balance. “Try to focus,” he said. “What were you saying about Gadrith?”

  “He’s not dead.”

  “Yes, he is,” Doc said. “You’re still drunk. Now come on. Let’s get some tea into you, and maybe some food if you can keep it down. You’ll be better for it.”

  “No, the kid’s right,” Tyentso said. “Gadrith tricked everyone, Nikali.”

  So she had known Doc back when he was Nikali Milligreest. I tucked that information away.

  Doc/Terindel/Nikali raised an eyebrow. “I’ve put that name behind me, along with a long list of others. It’s Doc now.” He frowned at Tyentso. “What are you talking about? I killed Gadrith myself. He’s dead and his soul is safely in Thaena’s hands.”

  “No, he’s not,” she said. “That damn rat tricked us. That rice porridge sounds fantastic.”

  “I want an explanation.”

  “You’ll get your damn explanation,” she said, “after I get my fucking breakfast.”

  He laughed. “Yes, Your Majesty.” Doc helped Tyentso to her feet and guided her to the table where he’d set out bowls.

  One for each of us, I noticed, including Teraeth, although I wasn’t so naïve as to think Doc had changed his opinion about his “arrogant” son.

  Did Teraeth know he was Doc’s son? I wracked my memory to see if the subject had come up during our drinking. I couldn’t be sure. We’d talked about a lot of things. I dimly remembered Teraeth going on for several hours about how Atrin Kandor had dammed the Zaibur River to create Lake Jorat—and why that had been such strategic genius.

  Teraeth picked up one of the bowls and stared at it.

  “Yes,” Doc said. “Every bowl is poisoned with my very own hangover cure. At least you won’t have to worry about the headache.” He grabbed one of the bowls and filled it with a porridge mixed with ginger, chopped turtle eggs, shredded pieces of island duck, and wild mushrooms. I had to admit it smelled delicious. More ginger, in the form of tea, sat on the tray in a large Kirpis blue-glazed teapot.

  “I wouldn’t put it past you,” Teraeth muttered, but he too began adding toppings to his breakfast.

  I dragged myself to a seat. For a while none of us concentrated on anything except eating, not throwing up what we’d just eaten, and a mutual agreement to be as quiet as possible while fighting the good fight.

  Teraeth stirred a spoon through his porridge. “Did you add something to this?”

  “I told you: I added a hangover cure. Feeling better?”

  “Surprisingly.” Teraeth took a healthy draught from his cup of tea and returned to eating the rice porridge with greater enthusiasm.

  I concentrated on eating. It really wouldn’t have mattered what breakfast tasted like, but the fact that Doc had managed to make this delicious was a nice bonus.

  Finally, when Doc resumed giving Tyentso and me dirty looks, I said, “Okay, back in the Capital, there is this sorcerer working with Darzin to locate the Stone of Shackles. He was probably the one who taught Darzin how to summon Xaltorath. And because I didn’t know his name, and because he was extremely creepy, I’ve always called him ‘Dead Man.’ Thanks to Tyentso, I now know who he is: Gadrith D’Lorus.”

  “Gadrith D’Lorus is dead,” Doc still insisted.

  “Well, you’re not entirely wrong,” Tyentso said. She saw the look on Doc’s face and waved a hand. “Okay, look. Nobody knows more about Gadrith than I do.”*

  “Yeah, about that—” I started to say.

  She pointed a finger at me. “Do not judge me, young man. None of us have lived a perfect life.”

  “Oh? I didn’t marry my father.”

  “Yeah, well, I did it for the oldest reason there is.”

  “Greed?” Teraeth had an eyebrow raised and an incredulous look on his face.

  “No.” Tyentso scowled. “Revenge.” Then she chuckled. “Funny thing is, it wasn’t even my revenge. I’d found this ghost who was willing to teach me magic. I wanted vengeance against the Academy dean who’d ordered my mother executed as a witch, and he wanted justice for his murder by Gadrith D’Lorus. We struck a bargain. Call it a trade of revenges. Anyway, my plan went off without a flaw, but then I found I was stuck with this ghost until I’d fulfilled my end of the deal and punished his murderer too.”

  I made a sympathetic noise. I knew firsthand that being possessed by a ghost was not what I considered a good time. Being stuck with one for years?

  �
�Still, Ty—marriage?” Doc seemed amused. “You humans frown on that sort of thing, last I checked.”

  “Oh please. I tell you I’ve murdered someone and you don’t care, but incest? Oh no! What will the children think?” She rolled her eyes. “You have to understand: I couldn’t get close enough to Gadrith to kill him. He never left his library except to go to the summoning chambers. Most of his servants were animated corpses. I thought his father the High Lord might welcome me in as an Ogenra, and that would give me a way past the guards and the wards.” She exhaled. “I never expected the bastard Cedric to order me to marry his son, and saying no would have—” She coughed. “—let’s just say refusal wasn’t an option.”

  Tyentso waved a hand. “The point is: I have studied Gadrith. His witch gift—the very first spell he ever figured out—was how to rip someone’s entire upper and lower soul out of their body and turn it into a tsali stone.”

  Teraeth whistled.

  My eyes widened. “Wait. I’ve seen him do that!”

  “I can’t imagine it would be a huge leap,” Tyentso continued, “from rock collecting using people, to stealing just the lower soul and absorbing it. When he murdered Emperor Gendal, he didn’t just kill the poor bastard. Gadrith stole the man’s magical power and added it to his own. He made a habit of that, and I can remember—” She paused to wet her throat. “—I can remember Gadrith boasting that the same ability would let him live forever, fool Thaena herself. I thought he was just bragging, but what if he was right?”

  “Impossible,” Doc said.

  “No,” Tyentso disagreed. “He was good at manipulating souls. What if he’d prepared for his own death? What if he planned it all out, so when you killed him, he’d already tucked most of his upper soul away somewhere safe? He could have sent a sliver of his soul—something like a gaesh—and all his lower soul to the Afterlife. Thaena might well think—at least for a little while—that he’d died. If Thaena thought it, it stands to reason Therin would too.”

  I raised a hand. “Wouldn’t he have actually died? You can’t live without your lower soul—” I stopped myself.

  I was reasonably certain a healthy chunk of MY lower soul was currently living inside an imprisoned demon king in the middle of Kharas Gulgoth.

  “You can if you know a way to keep stealing and feeding on the lower soul of others,” Tyentso said. “And if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll note Gadrith does.”

  “Damn,” Teraeth said. “That . . . would work.”

  “What about his corpse?” Doc snapped.

  Tyentso shrugged. “What about it? He’s Lord Heir to House D’Lorus. Thrones to diamonds his body was neatly preserved and handed over to his father, High Lord Cedric, for a proper burial in the family crypts. All Gadrith had to do was possess his own body, and he was back in business. Miserable, sure, because if we’re right he’s trapped in a halfway state between living and dead, but the point is, he still exists.”

  “Taja!” I set down my cup and grabbed at the blue stone around my neck. “Don’t you see? That’s it! That’s why he’s been chasing after the Stone of Shackles. If he gets his hands on this, he can just goad some fool into killing him and wham . . . he’ll have their body, just as if it had always been his own. No more existing inside an animated corpse. That’s why he wants it.”

  I was elated. Not even the remnants of that hangover could dampen my mood. To finally have some answers, to finally feel that just maybe I understood what the hell was going on, felt amazing. I beamed at the others.

  Naturally, Teraeth had to ruin that.

  “No good,” he said. “If that were true, Gadrith would have known how to steal the necklace from you. The fact that you’re still here, alive and in the body you were born in, means he doesn’t understand how the necklace really works.”

  “Not necessarily,” Doc said. “Gadrith could easily know the necklace makes its wearer switch bodies with their murderer, but I’d be very surprised if he understood that the Stone of Shackles stays with the original body when the switch happens. After all, when Therin showed up with Khaeriel, she still wore the necklace, even though she was now trapped inside the body of the woman who had murdered her, Miya. Gadrith must think the necklace transfers along with the soul.”

  My throat tightened. “What did you just say?”

  “Khaeriel?” Tyentso raised an eyebrow. “Queen Khaeriel? The vané queen? She’s been dead for decades.”

  “Well, you’re not entirely wrong,” Doc said, grinning as he tossed her phrase back to her. “Khaeriel’s body died, sure, but her soul never made it to the Afterlife.”

  I kept staring at Doc. “My mother—” I inhaled. “Are you certain?”

  “As Death. Don’t tell me you never suspected.”

  “I just didn’t want to believe—” Like so many things, I’d known, but hadn’t wanted to take that final step of admitting the truth to myself. Of course, Miya was my mother. However—“Wait. Khaeriel? You’re saying that Miya is Queen Khaeriel?”

  Doc sighed. “Use that brain. I know it hurts, but try.”

  Teraeth snickered.

  I scowled. “I hate you both. Just give me a straight answer.”

  “You know Miya owned the Stone of Shackles—and gave it to you when she tried to have you smuggled out of Quur. How do you think she got it?”

  I leaned back against the chair. A long time ago, when I had first run into Gadrith and Darzin, Dead Man and Pretty Boy, they had been asking those very same questions, hadn’t they? About the Stone of Shackles. Her serving girl ran off with it, Gadrith had said.

  No one’s seen Miyathreall in years.

  Miya.

  “Miya was Queen Khaeriel’s handmaiden,” I said. “Except not what she really was, was she? She was Queen Khaeriel’s assassin.”

  Doc beamed. “Exactly. But, since Khaeriel was wearing the Stone of Shackles, Khaeriel was transferred into Miya’s body. Same thing that happened to me, history repeating itself.”

  Teraeth set his elbows on the table, cup in hand. “She would have been extremely vulnerable just after the transfer. Magic is physical as much as spiritual. A new body means you have to learn spells all over again.”

  Doc gave him a nasty grin. “You would know.”

  Teraeth stared at him with narrowed eyes. “That’s good, coming from you.”

  “I get why Doc has experience with this,” I said, “but why do you, Teraeth? You’ve never owned the Stone of Shackles, have you?”

  Teraeth didn’t answer.

  “Ask him who he was in his last life,” Doc said cheerfully. “Go on. Ask him.”

  “I don’t care,” Tyentso said. “Let’s try to focus.”

  I cleared my throat and raised a hand. “But Tyentso cast magic when she possessed my body yesterday. She didn’t have any trouble.”

  “Oh, I just made it look easy,” Tyentso said. When she saw our raised eyebrows, she elaborated, “It’s not as easy as milking a bull elephant, but if you know how to compensate, if you’ve taken a lot of time to learn how the other person thinks, you can make adjustments. I’ve been studying Kihrin since we both arrived here, to try to figure out what his particular triggers are for magic.”

  Doc gestured in Tyentso’s direction. “Most people don’t have the opportunity to study their murderer for years before the soul swap takes place. In Khaeriel’s case, that meant that she would have wound up as Miya—with no ability to defend herself from being gaeshed and sold into slavery. Of course, it’s been twenty-five years, so she’s probably had time to figure it out.”

  “My mother is the vané queen?” I was a little stuck on that part.

  “No, your mother is a vané handmaiden possessed by the soul of a vané queen,” Doc corrected. “Or, Miya was a traitor and an assassin—as she attempted to kill the queen—and you are her son. Although since King Kelanis is probably the one who ordered Miya to assassinate his sister, Queen Khaeriel, I guess that makes you the son of a patriot too. Vané politi
cs gets complicated. You might want to draw up a chart.”

  “Damn, Doc,” Tyentso said. “Do you enjoy stealing sweets from little kids too? Back off. He’s gone through a lot in the last day.”

  I raised a hand. “I’m fine, Ty.”

  “Scamp, you’re not fine. Nobody gets blackout drunk like that because they’re fine. I should know. I drank more than you did because I am not fine.” She finished her tea and flipped her cup upside down on the table. “So, what are we going to do about Gadrith?”

  “Nothing?” Teraeth responded. “Kihrin can’t leave the island and as long as we keep the Stone of Shackles away from Gadrith, he’s doomed to a miserable, cursed existence. Let him stew. It’s what he deserves.”

  “Except he has to kill people to survive,” I said. “He has to devour the lower souls of innocent people to sustain his existence.” I scowled at the look Teraeth gave me. “You do remember what ‘innocent person’ means, don’t you?”

  “Innocent . . . that’s a synonym for naïve, yes? It’s not your problem. Let the Court of Gems deal with their wayward necromancer. They’ve earned him.”

  I shook my head. “It’s just a matter of time before they summon up Xaltorath again and send that monster after me.” I shuddered. “I don’t know what I’ll do if that happens.”

  “It won’t happen. They’ve already tried it,” Teraeth said.

  “What?” I felt the whole world tilt. “They’ve already what now?”

  Teraeth made a circle with his finger. “Gadrith and Darzin summoned up Xaltorath to track down the Stone of Shackles about a year ago. Mother told me. You have, or rather had, an Ogenra second cousin who vanished without a trace so they could have their sacrifice. Didn’t work. Xaltorath can’t get near this island. They don’t know where the stone is and therefore don’t know where you are either.”

  “And in the meantime, I’m just . . . trapped.” I nodded to them. “Trapped on this island, trapped with all of you. No offense.”

  “None taken,” said Teraeth.