The Ruin of Kings

by Jenn Lyons

  Faris looked around to realize that he was rapidly running out of gang members, and Galen was heading his way.

  “This isn’t over, Rook!” Faris shouted, and then he ran into the crowd.

  As Kihrin climbed back down from the roof, Galen cleaned off his sword on the discarded cloak. “We should wait for the guards,” Galen told him.

  “Oh, hell no,” Kihrin said. “We’re out of here, right now. Come on. Have you ever been to a brothel? Because believe me when I say this is the time to get us off the street.”

  “But we don’t have time to go all the way to Velvet Town . . .”

  Kihrin smiled and tried to act like he hadn’t been rattled by Faris’s appearance. Truthfully, he’d almost managed to forget that there were members of the Shadowdancers who would gleefully shiv him at the first available opportunity. And there were others who, like Faris, didn’t need the excuse of Butterbelly’s murder. He didn’t like that he’d put Galen in jeopardy, although if he were being honest with himself, Galen had saved the day.

  He spotted the painted board of a massage house and ducked into the tent, hand around Galen’s wrist. His brother seemed a little panicked, so Kihrin whispered, “Relax. It’s just a massage. Nobody’s going to do anything you don’t want.”

  “Right.” Some of the stress seemed to go out of him.

  A short, fat man took one look at them, immediately decided that their coin was made from the right metal, and ushered them into separate rooms—just separations in the tent made by hanging more panels of cloth. Kihrin wasn’t planning on getting a massage or any of the other no-doubt stellar services the mobile massage service offered, just in case Faris managed to track him down and came back with more people. He just wanted the additional distraction.

  He was about to tell the cloaked woman who entered the room this fact—that he was going to pay her metal and she’d have to do absolutely nothing for it—when she flipped back her hood.

  “Ola!” He started to rush forward and then paused. “Ola?”

  She’d lost weight. She’d lost so much weight she was almost unrecognizable, although her coloring was the same as before. Her skin was loose from the quick slimming and hung in folds. Her eyes looked haunted.

  “Yes,” Ola said. “It’s me.”

  But Kihrin didn’t close the gap between them. “There’s a mimic . . .”

  The woman nodded. “I know the one. I managed to escape her, although it wasn’t easy. Oh, Bright-Eyes. My boy.” She held out her hands to Kihrin and moved forward.

  He didn’t let her get too close. “How did you find me?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to leave the palace. I know you well enough to know you’d duck out the back of that merchant’s tent. Then it was mostly a matter of following the shouts and screams. You still do love trouble, don’t you?”

  He scowled. All that was possible. Ditching the guards would have been easier than ditching a fellow Shadowdancer.

  “Ola . . . Ola, what’s happened to you?”

  Ola grimaced. “Well, ain’t it clear enough? On the run from the Shadowdancers. On the run from everyone. It don’t exactly give a girl much chance to eat, now do it? And it weren’t easy to find you, either . . .”

  Kihrin looked down at himself, which reminded him that his kef was beautifully embroidered and made from the finest materials, that his clothes were bejeweled and worth a fortune. He looked back up at the woman he had once considered his mother. “Why didn’t you tell me? When were you going to? If I had known my family . . .”

  The Zheriaso woman shook her head. “I was doing what I thought best for you, child—”

  “That’s never been your style.”

  Ola closed her mouth, exhaling through her nostrils, and then nodded. “Maybe there’s some truth to that, child. But that don’t change our situation now, do it? I need to get out of the Capital.” She pointed a now bony finger at Kihrin. “You could stand to come with me. You and I both know that there ain’t nothing but pain for you in this City.”

  Kihrin looked to the side, looked to where he imagined Galen was being treated to some hopefully appreciated affection. “I can’t just—”

  “You want to bring him with you?” Ola said. “It doesn’t bother me none, but you best make sure he’s real serious about wanting to leave all the riches and wealth behind, because once we’re all gone, there’s no changing his mind later.”

  “Where were you thinking?” Kihrin asked.

  “Doltar,” Ola said. “So far south that Quur would never find us. We can settle down, live our lives, not be looking over our shoulders forever.”

  “When?” Kihrin raised an eyebrow. “Now?”

  “No, not until the end of the Festival,” Ola said. “No ships will be leaving the harbor before then. You’ll come with me, yes?”

  Kihrin thought about Galen, and he thought about someone else besides. “You’ll take two. Will you take three?”

  Ola clasped him on his shoulder. “Yes.”

  71: THE TRIP HOME

  (Kihrin’s story)

  Nothing of import or significance happened on our ship voyage to the Capital. We had good weather thanks to Tyentso. Nothing attacked us.

  I had all the time I could want to worry over the future.

  For the first few days, we made plans we agreed would mean little or nothing, because of the possibility of changing political climates. We weren’t going in blind, mind you. Thanks to the Brotherhood’s information network, we knew that Therin was still alive, as was my mother Miya, and my great-aunt Tishar. House D’Mon had fallen two ranks and was now ranked sixth. Jarith Milligreest was back in the City from his tour at Stonegate Pass, but only for long enough to take care of minor chores before rejoining his father, the High General, who was in Khorvesh visiting their family along with Jarith’s new wife and baby son. Both Thurvishar and Darzin were lamentably still around.

  We didn’t know what Gadrith and Darzin might have planned or prepared for in the four years I had been gone, but we knew they were still looking for me. The Brotherhood had sent several agents over the years– and once Teraeth himself—disguised to fit my general description, just to see if anyone was paying attention.

  The answer? Someone was very much paying attention. If the Black Brotherhood agents hadn’t been arrested on spurious charges by the Watchmen, waterfront spies (probably loyal to the Shadowdancers) pointed them out. In all cases, it had never taken more than an hour for Darzin to personally show up and check whether I’d returned to the Capital.

  So, I was going back in disguise.

  We all were. Tyentso had even more motive to make sure no one realized Raverí D’Lorus, convicted traitor and witch, had returned to the Capital, and Teraeth—

  Well. It probably wasn’t good for a Manol vané to be seen in the Capital just on general principle.

  I had time on the trip to think about my situation, what I was leaving behind and what I was heading toward. I had time to think about my mother and my father, and who they might be. Thanks to Doc/Terindel, Miya’s role was not in question, but the father’s role? My father?

  Oh, but there was only one person it could be. Not Darzin, no . . . Someone so ashamed of and yet chained to his relationship with Miya he demanded all call her “Lady” as if she were his titled wife. It would explain too why I looked so much like Pedron D’Mon, who was not in fact my great-great-uncle, or even my great-grandfather, but just my grandfather. Kihrin, son of Therin, son of Pedron. The golden hair had skipped a generation, helped along by a pure-blooded vané mother. The blue eyes had been there all along.

  As Therin himself had once promised me, my status as a D’Mon was never in question.

  My chest felt tight as the ship entered the natural inlet leading to the Capital City. The cause eluded me at first, danced in front of me. Then I recognized it as delayed sentimentality. Before I had been kidnapped and sold into slavery, I had never left the City’s confines.

  I was surpri
sed to discover I missed the Capital.

  I missed the white spiraling towers that made the City look like something from a children’s god-king tale in the distance, the crush of people and the way the noonday sun reflected off the Senlay River to create a blinding brightness. I missed the stifling heat bouncing off the white stone streets with homicidal fury. I missed the scent of the khilins firing bread and roasting meat and I missed the sound of vendors hawking their wares through the streets.

  I had been homesick for four years, but I hadn’t realized it until I returned.

  The artificial stone-wrought harbor of the Capital formed a half-circle as the sculpted breakwaters reached out toward the bay like a greedy demon’s claw. It was early summer—months to go until the autumn monsoons closed the City. The harbor was busy with frantic activity. Trading ships from Kazivar delivered grains and wines. The large loggers from Kirpis arrived with hardwoods and cedars. The small Khorveshan merchants off-loaded carpets, textiles, herbs, and dyes. Ships from Zherias and Doltar added their own mercantile imports and purchased exports to the overall clamor of background noise. Most of all, I found my gaze drawn to the bloated slave ships hulking by the side of the harbor to unload their grizzly living cargo. I unclenched my hand when I realized it was gripped tightly around the ship’s rail.

  Security on the docks had changed considerably in the years I had been absent. The large, famous dragon-carved Jade Gate, a wonder of the known world, was closed for the first time I could remember in my entire life. Someone had gone to the trouble of building a large wooden guardhouse and a smaller door next to the Jade Gate, which now constituted the only harbor entrance to the City. There were far more Watchmen on the wharf than I had ever seen before, and more distressingly, these increased numbers seemed to be normal. Most of the guards concentrated on the slave ships and tracking their human cargo. The air hanging over the docks was stifling and tense, filled with the undercurrent of suspicion and resentment.

  “When did all this start happening?” I asked the ship’s captain, Norrano, as we approached the docks.

  Captain Norrano shrugged. “A few years back. Some prince was kidnapped and ever since, the Quuros have been paranoid about foreigners. Revoked the old open city laws.”

  I suppressed a nervous sigh. “Ah.”

  Norrano chuckled. “Ah, it’ll calm down in a few years, I’m sure. Until then, they’re only letting foreigners into the Merchant’s Quarter and the adjoining Lower Circle sections.”

  “Of course,” I agreed. “Couldn’t keep visitors out of Velvet Town, could they?”

  “There would be a riot, young man,” the Captain agreed with a tug on the single diamond earring he wore. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do now that we’re docking. Damn customs agents are twice as hard to bribe now given the new merchant laws.” He walked away, muttering under his breath.

  I found Teraeth as the sailors were throwing ropes over to the dock hands waiting on the pier below to anchor the ship. He didn’t look anything like a Manol vané. He’d traded in his normal appearance for an illusion of a Quuros. Specifically, a Khorveshan Quuros, and the way he wore his misha, the sash around his hips, his boots just so, was so perfectly authentic that on more than one occasion during the trip I’d found myself wondering how Jarith Milligreest had snuck on board.

  He was looking at the sparkling city’s silhouette with thinly disguised anger.

  “Why do you hate Quur so much?” In all the years I’d known him, his hatred for my homeland had never wavered, not once. Ola hadn’t shared the smallest portion of his animosity, and she had been an actual slave in Quur.

  Teraeth scoffed. “Because I’m capable of observation? Ask the Marakori how much they like being under the Quuros thumb. Ask the Yorans. Ask any slave. The corpse looks whole and healthy on the surface, but scratch past that and it’s nothing but rot and worms.”

  “That’s a charming visual—” I shook my head. “—but this is personal for you.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe a little.”

  “But even you have to admit we have a fantastic sewer system.” I leaned forward against the railing. “You ready for this?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Tyentso said as she passed by.

  At Tyentso’s own suggestion, she was dressed as a servant. There were no potentially suspicious illusions to disguise her appearance—already altered from the one she’d worn herself when she was Raverí D’Lorus. Wire glasses perched on her nose and she wore her hair pulled back in a severe knot. She looked useful, efficient, and like no one a nobleman would ever expect to serve his bed. Her staff had been left behind, and she wore no talismans. We all agreed it would be best if her aura didn’t betray her magical skill.

  “We’ll be fine,” I told them, mostly so I would believe it myself.

  Four years, I’d been gone.

  A lot can change in four years.

  We all turned at the sound of the plank being lowered off the edge of the ship, followed moments later by footsteps. A thin, officious-looking man with a prudish face presented himself, followed by several Quuros Imperial soldiers.

  “Captain . . .” The man looked at his parchment critically. “Norrino?” He mouthed the word like a distasteful obscenity.

  “Norrano,” the Captain automatically corrected.

  “That is what I said,” the thin man snapped. “I am Master Mivoli with the Harbor Master’s office. I will need to see your complete cargo and passenger lists.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the curly-haired ship’s captain passed over several sheets of vellum. “Whatever blows your skirt up.”

  The inspector scanned down the list of names and called them out, quickly and efficiently marking people off. He passed by Teraeth’s and Tyentso’s identities without comment, but then something on the list made him blink and turn pale. I had a pretty good idea what that might be.

  Master Mivoli raised his head and scanned the crew and passengers until he stopped dead at me. He swallowed.

  I smiled, but he couldn’t see it, since my face was covered by a mask.

  “Witchhunter Piety?”

  Honestly, I’m not even sure why he felt he had to ask. Nerves, probably. My identity was not in question. I wore the black colors of House D’Lorus, including a deep hood and, in case there was any doubt, the carved wooden skull mask of the professional witchhunter. A thin gauze cloth covered the eyeholes, making it impossible to see what color my eyes might be. The rest of the outfit fell into the established theme: the coat of talismans, so covered with octagon-shaped coins they took on the look (and role) of scale armor; the belt of daggers made from different metals and alloys.*

  “Yes.” I stepped forward. He took an unconscious step back.

  A witchhunter had one job, after all. Even if Mivoli was legal and licensed and paid his dues to House D’Laakar strictly on time, I was still dressed up as something that nightmares were made from. I watched a determined look come over the man’s face as he gathered himself up. Mivoli’s eyes unfocused, and I knew he was looking beyond the First Veil.

  And . . . my aura looked right. I knew it did. I’d spent weeks enchanting all these damn talismans, so many that I didn’t have enough magical power left to see beyond the First Veil myself nor cast the least spell, not even my witch gift of invisibility. Mivoli probably saw a multi-stamped aura so strong and crisp that even Relos Var would have been just a little impressed.

  Except for the part where I couldn’t cast any spells.

  “I’ll need your identification,” he said, and held out surprisingly steady fingers.

  I was ready for this part too, and handed him a specially stamped disk of blended metal alloys that was supposedly impossible to counterfeit.

  We hadn’t bothered. The real Witchhunter Piety was also a real member of the Black Brotherhood. (He was currently enjoying a well-earned vacation on Zherias.)

  Master Mivoli checked the disk against his records, saw it was genuine, and waved a hand
toward the docks, indicating I was free to go. He didn’t ask me what my business in the Capital was. He didn’t ask me where I was going.

  The answer was already known: whatever and wherever I wanted. Witchhunters weren’t technically above the law, but the distinction was subtle.

  When I disembarked, I found a Black Brotherhood carriage was already waiting (truthfully, I was almost disappointed that it wasn’t an extravagant black color), which both Teraeth and I used. Tyentso left by herself, although if everything went to plan she would be met by her own ride a block away. We didn’t waste any time giving directions that someone might overhear: our driver already knew where to go.

  As soon as we were both inside the carriage, I pulled off the mask and hood and tossed both to Teraeth’s seat. “Think anyone noticed us?”

  Teraeth pulled a silk agolé from one of his bags and handed it to me. One side was gold and the other side was blue. “Probably not. Our people will let us know if they spot anything.”

  I took one of the daggers from my belt and started cutting the coins off my coat, staring at each one for a moment to pull back the talismanic energy before I tossed the metal out the carriage window. Some urchin was going to have a very good day. Being a witchhunter sounded like fun, but it didn’t really make someone immune to magic, just immune to certain kinds of body-affecting magic. If I wore enough talismans, a sorcerer like Gadrith wouldn’t be able to melt the flesh off my bones or turn me into a fish, but he could still electrocute me or set the air around me on fire. The witchhunters that House D’Lorus had sent after Tyentso had never lasted long.

  All things considered, I’d rather be able to do some magic of my own.

  “You know, I still think it would be better if we were explaining things to the High General himself,” Teraeth said. His disguise didn’t need any modification, but he preferred working with daggers. He made a motion to me to hand them over.

  “Maybe.” I stopped cutting talismans free for long enough to unbuckle several braces of daggers. “But I can’t be sure High General Milligreest wouldn’t just drop me off at the Blue Palace like a trussed-up pig. I get the feeling he still thinks of me as Therin’s troublesome brat of a son, the one who can’t be trusted to tell the truth and shouldn’t be left alone with the valuables.” I paused. “Well, second-most troublesome brat. As long as Darzin’s still around, anyway.”