Tower Lord

CHAPTER FOUR

Lyrna

Princess Lyrna Al Nieren had never liked riding. She found horses dull company and the hardness of the saddle like to leave her with bruises she couldn’t ask her maid to salve. In consequence the many miles her party had covered on its journey north had done nothing to improve her temper. But then that was true of the last five years.

Does the rain ever cease here? she wondered, peering out from the hood of her ermine-trimmed robe at the rain sheeting onto the slate-grey landscape. Five days out from Cardurin and the rain hadn’t stopped once.

Lord Marshal Nirka Al Smolen reined in alongside and saluted, rain streaming over his breastplate in a matrix of ever-changing rivulets. “Only five more miles, Highness.” His voice had a wariness to it. This endless journey was making her less restrained in voicing rebuke, and she knew her tongue could carry all the sting of an angry wasp when it chose to. Seeing the caution in his face she sighed. Oh, give the man some respite, you hateful witch. “Thank you, Lord Marshal.”

He saluted again, some small relief colouring his cheeks as he spurred on ahead to scout the route, a troop of five Mounted Guards in close escort. Another fifty closed in around her and the two ladies she had chosen to take north, hardy girls from country manors, of more middling rank than most of her attendants but not given to either giggles or complaints of discomfort. She gave Sable a nudge with her knee and they started forward, ascending the rocky path to the dark narrow slash of the Skellan Pass.

“Highness, if I may,” ventured Nersa, the taller of the two ladies. She was braver than Jullsa who was wont to lapse into prolonged silence after Lyrna’s more acid rebukes.

“What is it?” Lyrna said, feeling every jab of Sable’s hips despite the thickness of the saddle.

“Are we likely to see one today, Highness?”

Nersa had been fascinated by the prospect of laying eyes on a Lonak since leaving Varinshold. Lyrna put it down to the morbid curiosity of youth, like a child who prods at the guts of a dead dog. But so far the fabled wolfmen had been absent from their path, at least as far as they could tell. None can hide so well as a Lonak, Highness, the Brother Commander back at Cardurin had warned her, a husky man with bright shrewd eyes. You won’t see them, but by the Departed they’ll see you before you’re ten miles from this city.

Watching the pass grow in size as they approached, a shadowed cavern cleaving into the mountain, Lyrna saw the first sign of fortification, a squat tower covering the southern approach, a faint speck of blue on the battlements. Some lonely brother on the morning watch no doubt.

“If not here, then likely not at all,” she told Nersa. Despite her brother’s assurances she still harboured deep doubts about this whole enterprise. Can they really want peace after so many centuries?

The Brother Commander waiting at the tower was somewhere past his fortieth year with cropped silver-grey hair and pale eyes beneath a scarred brow. He voiced his greeting in a harsh, battle-seasoned voice, bowing as low as formality required. “Highness.”

“Brother Commander Sollis is it not?” She climbed down from Sable, resisting the urge to rub some feeling into her benumbed rump.

“Yes, Highness.” He straightened, gesturing at two more brothers standing nearby. “Brothers Hervil and Ivern will also be accompanying us north.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Only three? Your Aspect assured the King of his full support for this mission.”

“There are only sixty brothers to hold this pass, Highness. I can spare no more.” There was a finality to his tone that told her no amount of regal intimidation, or grace, would change his mind. She had heard of him of course, the famed sword-master of the Sixth Order, scourge of Lonak and outlaw, survivor of the fall of Marbellis . . . Master to Vaelin Al Sorna.

Father, I beg you . . .

“As you will, brother,” she said, smiling. It was one of her best, gracious, not overly dazzling, with just the right amount of admiration in her eyes for the dutiful brother. “I would, of course, never question your judgement in such matters.”

The dutiful brother stared back with his pale eyes, face betraying no emotion whatsoever.

This one’s different, at least. “The guide is here?”

“Yes, Highness.” He stepped aside, gesturing at the tower. “I’ve had food prepared.”

“Most kind of you.”

The tower interior had seen some recent and vigorous scrubbing but still retained the cloying, sweaty odour of men living in close proximity. She looked at the plain but copious array of food on the table before the fireplace, finding the seats bare of occupants, as was the rest of the chamber. “The guide?” she enquired of Sollis.

“This way, Highness.” He moved to a heavy door at the rear of the chamber, working a key in the large padlock on the handle. “We were obliged to quarter her downstairs.”

He hauled the door open, revealing a set of descending stone steps, lifting a torch from an iron brace on the wall. “If you would care to follow me.”

Lyrna turned back to Nersa and Jullsa. “Ladies, please remain here and partake of the meal the brothers have kindly provided. Lord Marshal, if you could attend me.”

She and Smolen followed Sollis down the winding steps to a small chamber, lit only by a narrow window inset with iron bars. A woman sat in shadow at the far end of the chamber, long legs clad in dark red leather protruding into the light, eyes glittering in the gloom. She stirred at the sight of Lyrna, shifting into a crouch, the chain around her ankle jangling on the stone floor.

“This is our guide?” she asked Sollis.

“It is, Highness.” The hardness of his expression as he stared at the shadowed woman told her much of his regard for this whole adventure. “Arrived two days ago with a note from the High Priestess herself. We gave her bed and board as ordered and that night she knifed one of my brothers in the thigh. I considered it prudent to confine her here.”

“Did she have cause to attack the brother?”

Sollis gave a small sigh of discomfort. “Seems he refused to assuage her . . . appetites. A terrible insult in Lonak society, apparently.”

Lyrna moved closer to the Lonak woman, Sollis keeping two paces ahead, hands loose at his sides. “You have a name?” she asked the woman.

“She doesn’t know Realm Tongue, Highness,” Sollis said. “Hardly any do. Learning our words sullies their soul.” He turned to the Lonak woman. “Esk gorin ser?”

She ignored him, shuffling forward a little, her face becoming clear. It was smooth and angular with high cheekbones, her head almost entirely bald but for a long black braid protruding from the crown to snake down over her shoulder, a steel band shining on the end of it. She wore a sleeveless jerkin of thin leather, an intricate mazelike tattoo of green and red covering the skin from her left shoulder to her chin. Her gaze scanned Lyrna from head to toe, a slow smile coming to her lips. She said something in a rapid tumble of her own language.

“Ehkar!” Sollis barked, stepping closer, glaring a threat.

The woman stared back and smiled wider, showing teeth that gleamed in the gloom.

“What did she say?” Lyrna asked.

Sollis gave another discomforted sigh. “She, erm, wants food, Highness.”

Lyrna’s Lonak had been learned from a book, the most comprehensive guide she could find in the Great Library. An aged master from the Third Order had tutored her in the various vowel sounds and subtle shifts of emphasis that could change the meaning of a word or a sentence. He had freely admitted his understanding of the wolfmen’s tongue was patchy and dulled with the years since he had journeyed north in his youth, gleaning knowledge from a few Lonak captives willing to talk in return for freedom. Nevertheless, Lyrna had sufficient command of the language to produce a rough translation of the woman’s words, but decided she would enjoy hearing the dutiful brother say it.

“Tell me exactly what she said, brother,” she commanded. “I must insist on it.”

Sollis coughed and spoke as tonelessly as possible. “When the men are on the hunt Lonak women look to each other for . . . nightly comforts. If you were of her clan, she’d want them to stay on the hunt for good.”

Lyrna turned to the Lonak woman and pursed her lips. “Really?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“Kill her.”

The Lonak woman jerked back, the chain between her fists, ready to ward off a blow, eyes fixed on Sollis in readiness for combat, even though he hadn’t moved.

“It seems she speaks Realm Tongue after all,” Lyrna observed. “What’s your name?”

The woman scowled at her, then abruptly laughed, rising from her crouch. She was tall, standing an inch or two higher than both Sollis and Smolen in fact. “Davoka,” she said, raising her chin.

“Davoka,” Lyrna repeated softly. Spear, in the archaic form. “What are your instructions from the High Priestess?”

Davoka’s accent was thick but the words spoken with enough slow precision to be understood. “Take the Merim Her queen to the Mountain,” she said. “See she arrives whole and living.”

“I am a princess, not a queen.”

“A queen she said. A queen you are.” There was a certainty to the woman’s words that warned Lyrna further questioning on this point would be unwise. The meagre collection of works on Lonak history and culture in the Great Library had been vague and often contradictory, but they all agreed on one point: the words of the High Priestess were not to be questioned.

“If I release you, are you going to stab any more brothers, or make unseemly suggestions that insult their calling?”

Davoka cast a contemptuous glance at Sollis, muttering in her own language: Wouldn’t sully my nethers with any of these limp-pricks. “No,” she told Lyrna.

“Very well.” She nodded at Sollis. “She can join us for dinner.”

Davoka sat at Lyrna’s side at dinner, having glared at Jullsa to make a space. The lady had blanched and excused herself from table, curtsying to Lyrna before rushing off to the chamber she and Nersa had been given. I’ll send her home in the morning, Lyrna decided. Not so hardy as I hoped. In contrast, Nersa seemed fascinated by Davoka, stealing glances over the table, earning a fierce glower or two in return.

“You serve the High Priestess?” Lyrna asked Davoka as the tall woman ate, slicing pieces of apple into her mouth with a narrow-bladed knife.

“All Lonak serve her,” Davoka replied around a mouthful.

“But you are of her household?”

Davoka barked a laugh. “House? Hah!” She finished her apple and tossed the core into the fireplace. “She has a mountain, not a house.”

Lyrna smiled and summoned up some patience. “But you have a role there?”

“I guard her. Only women guard her. Only women can be trusted. Men act crazy in her presence.”

Lyrna had read fanciful accounts of the supposed powers of the High Priestess. Noble-hearted men driven to insane passions by the merest glimpse, according to a somewhat lurid tome entitled Blood Rites of the Lonak. Whatever the truth of it, all the accounts pointed to a strong belief in her Dark powers. In truth, it was this, rather than her brother’s entreaties that had made her agree to this expedition.

Many years of study, quiet investigation, tortuous cross-referencing but still no evidence. Look in the western quarter for the tale of the one-eyed man, he said, that day he stole a kiss before the entire Summertide Fair. And she had. The tale, brought to her by the few servants she could trust to seek answers in the capital’s poorest quarter, had seemed absurd at first. One Eye was king of the outlaws and could bind men to him by will alone. One Eye drank the blood of his enemies to gain power. One Eye defiled children in dark rites conducted in the catacombs beneath the city. The only certainty to the tale was its end; One Eye had been killed by the Sixth Order, some said by Al Sorna himself. On this all the sources agreed, but on little else.

And so she kept looking, gathering accounts from all over the Realm. A girl who could call the wind in Nilsael, a boy who could talk with dolphins in South Tower, a man seen raising the dead in Cumbrael. A hundred or more fantastical tales, most of which turned out to be exaggeration, misunderstanding, gossip or outright lies on further investigation. No evidence. It maddened her, this absence of clarity, this lack of an answer, spurring her on, making her deepen her research, becoming a burden to the Lord Librarian with her constant demands for older and older books.

She knew much of this interest stemmed from the simple fact that she had little else to do. Her brother’s rule left her with no real place at court. He had a queen now, little Janus and Dirna to secure his line and a boundless supply of advisors. Malcius liked advice. The more the better, especially when one advisor contradicted another, which of course would require him to order the matter at hand be subject to further investigation, usually so thorough in nature it was several months before a conclusion had been reached and the matter had resolved itself or been superseded by more pressing affairs. In fact the only advice Malcius wouldn’t listen to was that offered by his sister.

Never forget, her father’s words, spoken to a little girl many years ago as she pretended to play with her dolls. A man who asks for advice is either indulging in the pretence of consideration or too weak to know his own mind.

To be fair Malcius always knew his own mind when it came to one thing: bricks and mortar. “I will make this a land of wonders, Lyrna,” he told her once, laying out his grand plan for a reborn western quarter of Varinshold, broad streets and parks replacing narrow alleys and slums. “This is how we secure the future. Give the people a Realm fit for living, not merely existing.”

She loved him, it was true, a fact she had demonstrated in the most terrible manner. But her dearest brother was the most colossal fool.

“How many men do you have, Queen?” Davoka asked her abruptly.

Lyrna blinked in surprise. “I . . . have fifty guardsmen as my escort.”

“Not guards. Men . . . Husbands you call them.”

“I have no husband.”

Davoka squinted at her. “Not one?”

“No.” She took a drink of wine. “Not one.”

“I have ten.” The Lonak woman’s voice dripped with pride.

“Ten husbands!” Nersa said in astonishment.

“Yes,” Davoka assured her. “None of them with more than one other wife. No need when married to me!” She laughed and thumped the table, making Nersa jump.

“Guard your tongue, woman!” Lord Marshal Al Smolen growled at her. “Such talk is not fit for Her Highness’s company.”

Davoka rolled her eyes, reaching for a chicken leg. “Merim Her.” She sighed. Sea scum, or debris swept onto the shore, depending on the inflection.

“How many days to the Mountain of the High Priestess?” Lyrna asked her.

Davoka clamped the chicken leg into her mouth and held up all ten fingers then repeated the gesture.

Twenty more days in the saddle. Lyrna suppressed a groan and reminded herself to ask Nersa for some more salve.

Jullsa cried and begged to be allowed to stay. Lyrna gave her one of the bluestone-inlaid silver bracelets she kept for such occasions, a purse of ten golds and thanked her for her service, assuring her she would write to her parents in the most glowing terms and that she was always welcome at court. She walked to Sable as Nersa soothed her weeping friend.

“You do right, Queen,” Davoka said from the back of her sturdy pony. She was dressed in a thick wolf fur and carried a long spear with a triangular blade of black iron, the sharpened edges bright in the rising sun. “That one’s weak. Her children will perish in their first winter.”

“Call me Lyrna.” She hauled herself into the saddle. The riding gown was pleated from waist to hem to allow her to ride full saddle but she found it still too constricting for comfort.

“Lerhnah,” Davoka repeated carefully. “What does it mean?”

“It means my mother was fond of her grandmother.” She smiled at Davoka’s confusion. “Asraelin names don’t mean anything. We name our children on a whim.”

“Lonak children name themselves.” Davoka shook her spear. “Named myself when I took this from the man I killed.”

“He had wronged you?”

“Many times. He was my father!” She laughed and spurred her pony forward.

The fortifications of the Skellan Pass were a complex maze of walls and towers, each great stone barrier angled so as to funnel any attacking force into a tight killing space. Lyrna admired the intelligence behind the design, the way it allowed for continuous defence even when one part of the fortifications had fallen to an enemy, the towers and walls arranged in ascending heights depending on how deep they were in the pass.

Sollis led them through ten gates, each protected by a thick iron portcullis that had to be hauled up to allow egress. Despite the strength of the defences she could see the truth of his words; there were too few brothers to man the fortifications. She saw Davoka’s narrowed gaze as she surveyed the walls and knew she was coming to the same conclusion. Is this all a ruse? Lyrna thought. A design to place a spy here to report on the state of the defences.

She quickly discounted the thought, recalling the shrewd-eyed brother’s warnings about the omniscience of the Lonak this far north. They know how weak we are here, yet instead of attacking, the High Priestess sends word that she wants to talk peace, but only to me.

It took over an hour of tortuous winding through pathways between the walls and gates, built so narrow as to allow only one horse to pass at a time, before they finally emerged on the northern side of the pass. The rain had abated today and the sun shafted through the clouds, curtains of light descending on the mountainous dominion of the Lonak. The peaks stretched away into the distance, formidable, blue-grey monsters of granite and ice.

Davoka raised her head to the sky, breathing deep then exhaling in a rush. Clearing the stench of us from her lungs, no doubt, Lyrna surmised.

The Lonak woman guided her pony to the head of the column, taking the narrow, rock-strewn path descending to the floor of the valley beyond. She gave no instruction or gesture, beginning the descent without preamble, seemingly expectant that they would follow without question. Lyrna saw the suspicion on Smolen’s face and gave him a nod of assent. She could tell he was biting down words of argument as he barked a command to his men.

They journeyed for another four hours, tracking over an array of valley and hillside interspersed with small patches of pine forest. Lyrna found there was a stark beauty to be found this side of the pass, the grey monotony of the country north of Cardurin replaced with a land of shifting hues, ever-changing skies allowing the sunlight to paint the rocky outcrops and heather-clad hills with a varied palette, rich in colour and very pleasing to the eye. Perhaps this is why they fight so hard to keep it, she thought. Because it’s beautiful.

When the Lonak woman finally called a rest Nersa placed a silken pillow on a patch of heather and presented Lyrna with a luncheon of chicken and raisin bread, together with a goblet of the dry Cumbraelin white she liked so much. Dessert consisted of a selection from their diminishing supply of chocolate fancies.

“Look like rabbit turds,” Davoka said, giving one of the sweets a suspicious sniff. She had hunkered down to join their lunch without asking permission. It seemed the Lonak shared food without favour or propriety when on the march.

“Try one,” Lyrna said, popping a fancy into her mouth. Rum and vanilla, very nice. “You’ll like it.”

Davoka took a cautious bite of the sweet, her eyes widening in instant delight, which she was quick to conceal, muttering a phrase in her own language as she frowned in self-reproach. Comfort makes you weak.

“You carry a weapon,” she said, pointing to the trinket hanging on a chain around Lyrna’s neck. “Can you use it?”

Lyrna held up the trinket. A plain throwing knife of the type commonly used by the Sixth Order, little bigger than an arrowhead. It was the least ornate piece of jewellery in her entire extensive collection, and the only one worn with any regularity, at least when she was safely away from the eyes of the court.

“No,” she said. “It’s just a keepsake. A gift from . . . an old friend.” Father, I beg you . . .

“No use carrying a weapon you can’t use.” Faster than anyone could give thought to stopping her, Davoka leaned forward and hooked the chain and knife over Lyrna’s head. “Here, I show you. Come.” She rose and walked towards a small pine growing near the edge of the trail.

Nersa rose to her feet in outrage. “You insult Our Highness’s person! The Princess of the Unified Realm does not sully herself with martial pursuits.”

Davoka gave her a look of total bafflement. “This one speaks words not in my head.”

“It’s all right, Nersa.” Lyrna got to her feet, calming the lady with a touch to the arm, speaking softly. “We need to make all the friends we can here.”

She followed Davoka to the pine. The Lonak woman detached the knife from the chain with a sharp tug and held it up to the sunlight. “Sharp, good.” She moved in a blur, the knife spinning from her hand to bury itself in the pine trunk.

Lyrna glanced over to where Sollis sat with his two brothers. He watched the scene with no sign of amusement on his face. She noted he had placed his bow within reach, an arrow notched to the string.

“You try, Lerhnah.” Davoka returned from the pine having worked the knife loose from the bark.

Lyrna looked at the knife in her hand as if seeing it for the first time. All the years she had owned it she had never once attempted to use it for its true purpose. “How?”

Davoka gestured at the pine. “Look at the tree, throw the knife.”

“I’ve never done this before.”

“Then you miss. Throw again and miss. Again and again until you hit. Then you know how.”

“It’s really that easy?”

Davoka laughed. “No. Really hard. Learning any weapon really hard.”

Lyrna looked at the tree, drew her arm back and threw the knife as hard as she could. Nersa and the guards spent a half hour searching before it was found amongst the surrounding heather.

“We try a bigger tree tomorrow,” Davoka said.

They covered what felt like a hundred miles by nightfall, but Lyrna knew it was closer to twenty. Davoka chose a campsite atop a rocky rise overlooking a small vale, a position both Sollis and Smolen pronounced defensible on all sides. Smolen organised his men in a perimeter around the camp, with Sollis and his two brothers no more than ten feet from Lyrna’s tent. Dinner was roasted pheasant with the last of the raisin bread, a treat Davoka seemed to enjoy greatly, albeit without any words of appreciation.

“So, Lerhnah,” she said when the meal was complete, squatting in front of the fire, hands raised to the warmth. “What stories do you offer?”

“Stories?” Lyrna asked.

“Your camp, your stories.”

There was a gravity to the Lonak woman’s voice as she spoke the word “stories,” similar to how some of the more devoted Faithful spoke the word “Departed.” Lyrna’s researches had contained numerous references to the respect the Lonak had for history, but she hadn’t realised it approached religious fervour.

“It’s their custom, Highness,” Sollis said from the other side of the fire. “Doesn’t have to be long, just true.”

“Yes,” Davoka insisted. “Truth only. None of the lies you write down and call poems.”

Truth only. Lyrna concealed a wry smile. How long since I did that? “I have a tale,” she told Davoka. “It’s very strange and, although many swear to its truth, I cannot confirm it. Perhaps if you hear it, you can be the judge.”

Davoka sat in silent contemplation for a moment, brow furrowed. This, it seemed, was an important decision. Eventually she nodded. “I’ll hear it, Queen. And tell you if I hear truth.”

“I’m glad.” Lyrna straightened on her pillow, offering Sollis a gracious smile through the flames. “And you, brother. I would greatly appreciate your opinion of this tale, I call it the Legend of the One-Eyed Man.”

His pale eyes betrayed nothing. “Of course, Highness.”

She paused for a moment to modulate her breathing. She had been trained in oratory, at her own insistence, since her father regarded the art with a measure of disdain; he always did prefer speaking in private. “Over ten years ago,” she began, “in the city we call Varinshold, a man rose to claim lordship over all the outlaws in the city.”

Davoka squinted at her. “Outlaw?”

“Varnish,” Sollis said. Exile, without clan, worthless, thief or scum, depending on the inflection.

“Ahh.” She nodded. “Go on, Queen.”

“This man had always been of vicious temperament,” Lyrna continued. “Given to foul acts of theft, murder and rape, of both boys and maids it’s said. His viciousness was such that all the other outlaws feared him to the extent that they would pay him to be left in peace. But one young thief wouldn’t pay, a young thief with a keen eye and a knife, just like mine.” She held up the throwing knife, gleaming red in the firelight. “And that young thief put his knife into the lord outlaw’s eye. He lingered for days in great pain, thrashing and wailing, and then succumbed to a sleep so deep his minions thought him dead and began to wrap him in canvas in preparation for dumping in the deepest part of the harbour, for such is the resting place of most outlaws in Varinshold. But death hadn’t claimed him, he rose again this lord of outlaws, to be known for ever more as One Eye.

“His anger was great, terrible acts were committed in his name as he sought the young thief, finding to his rage the boy had become a brother of the Sixth Order, and therefore beyond his reach, for now. And here is where the story becomes strange, for it’s said the loss of his eye had birthed in him a great power, a Dark power.”

“Dark?” Davoka asked.

“Rova kha ertah Mahlessa,” Sollis told her. That which is known only to the Mahlessa, the High Priestess.

The Lonak woman got to her feet. “I can hear no more of this,” she stated, avoiding Lyrna’s gaze and stalking away into the darkness.

“It’s a thing they don’t talk of, Highness,” Sollis explained. “To voice a thing gives it substance. They prefer the Dark to have no substance.”

“I see.” Lyrna wrapped her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “Well, it seems I am left with an audience of one for my story.”

“I’ve heard it before. A one-eyed man with the power to bind others with his will alone. It’s nonsense.” Sollis got to his feet, hefting his bow. “I have the first watch, by your leave, Highness.” He gave a precisely correct bow and walked away.

“How does it end, Highness?” Nersa asked, huddled at the entrance to her own tent, her face a pale oval in fox fur. “What happened to the one-eyed man?”

“Oh, they say he died a predictably ugly death. Slain by the Sixth Order in the bowels of the city.” Lyrna went to her own tent. “Best get some rest, Nersa. I doubt tomorrow will be any easier than today.”

“Yes, Highness. Sleep well.”

Sleep well. Any sleep would have been welcome, troubled, dream-filled, fitful, she didn’t care. Any release from this restless squirming in her cage of furs as she stared at the weave of the canvas over her head. A stiff northerly wind was ruffling the tent walls, making them snap and thrum in a most aggravating manner. But it wasn’t this that kept her from sleep, nor had it been for the past five years. Every night! she raged. Even here in this chilled waste, after so many miles on that blasted horse.

It was always the same, every night she would lie abed waiting for sleep, but it wouldn’t come, not until she had spent most of the night hours awash in memory and sheer exhaustion dragged her mind into slumber. Despite the nightly trial she never sought out a healer for a sleeping draught, never partook of wine to excess or dulled her senses with redflower. She hated it, this torment, but she accepted it. It was her due after all.

The memory became clearer when her mind had lost enough sensation of the world beyond her body to give its vision clarity, but not enough to bring the gift of sleep. The old man in the bed, so old, so sunken into age and regret, barely recognisable as her father, barely believable as a king.

She stood in the doorway to his bedchamber, a scroll clutched in her hand, the seal broken. The Alpiran Emperor had done them the courtesy of having it penned in Realm Tongue. The old man’s eyes tracked from her face to the scroll. He waved an irritated hand at the physicians surrounding the bed, a harsh bark coming from his throat, louder than she would have thought him capable. The physicians fled.

The old man’s skeletal claw beckoned to her and she came forward to kneel at his bedside. The voice that came from his throat was a dry rasp, but quick, the words clear. “So that’s it, is it?”

Lyrna placed the scroll on the bed. “Would you like me to read it?”

“Caahh!” he snarled, hand twitching. “Know what it says. No point. They want the boy. They want the Hope Killer.”

She looked down at the scroll, the neat precise text, beautifully scribed. “Yes, in return for Malcius. He’s alive, Father.”

“’Course he is, curses never die.”

Lyrna closed her eyes tight. “Father, please . . .”

“That’s all? Just the boy?”

“His men can leave. They ask for no reparations, no tribute. Just him.”

There was no sound save for the old man’s laboured breathing, like a dry rope dragged through an ungreased block. Lyrna looked up, meeting his eyes, fierce and bright enough to tell her he was still in there, still scheming away in his prison of age and illness. “No,” he said.

“Father, I beg you . . .”

“No!” The shout brought a fit of coughing, doubling him over in the bed. He was so thin and wasted she feared he might snap.

“Father . . .” She tried to ease him back onto the pillow but he shrugged her off.

“You tell them no, daughter!” His eyes blazed at her, blood staining his lips and chin as he drew air into his lungs in painful gulps. “I did not do all this . . . to be thwarted now. You will send the Alpiran ambassador home . . . with a refusal and a statement of our rightful claim to the ports . . . Then you will send the remaining fleet . . . to Linesh with orders for Al Sorna to embark himself and his army . . . They are to return to the Realm with all dispatch . . . When I die, as I surely must before long . . . You will wed him as consort and ascend to the throne . . .”

“My brother . . .”

“Your brother is a waste of my blood!” He thrashed at her, lunging across the bed. “Do you think I have worked . . . for all these years to bequeath my Realm . . . to a fool who’ll see it in ruins within a decade!” The cough took him again, wracking him, blood misting the bedcovers. Lyrna turned to call for the physicians but his claw-hand snared her wrist. For all his age and infirmity he still had a warrior’s grip. “The war, Lyrna . . .” he said, fierce eyes softer now, imploring, “. . . the Realm Guard shattered, the treasury emptied . . . All for you to make it right, rebuild, be the saviour of this Realm. All for you . . .”

Revulsion engulfed her then, making her flesh burn where he touched her. She tore her wrist away, retreating as he continued to beg, blood now streaming from his mouth. “Please, Lyrna . . . all for you.”

She stood in silence as he raged and flailed, until it seemed all the blood in him had stained the bedclothes and he lay spent and twitching, no more words coming from his hateful mouth. She swallowed, waited until his eyes were closed, until his chest had slowed to little more than a tremor. “Good sirs!” she called, making her voice as shrill with alarm as she could. “Good sirs, the King!”

The physicians returned in a flurry of robes and panic, flocking around the bed like crows around a perished horse. “Do all you can, good sirs!” she implored them. After another half hour of fussing one of the physicians came forward and bowed.

“Sir?” she enquired, tears streaming from her eyes.

“Highness, he has slipped into the final sleep. He will be with the Departed before the sun rises.” He sank to one knee before her, the others following suit.

She closed her eyes, letting the final tear fall, knowing it would be the last she would ever shed for her father. “Thank you, sir. Please see to his comfort.”

She retrieved the scroll and walked from the chamber. The Alpiran ambassador was seated where she had left him, on a bench in the main courtyard. It was a full moon and the marble paving stones were painted a pale blue, the pillars casting deep shadows.

“My lord Velsus,” she greeted him.

Lord Velsus, a tall black-skinned man in a simple robe of blue and white, returned the bow. “Highness. What word from your father?”

She clutched the scroll tight, feeling the parchment crack, ruining the fine calligraphy it held. “King Janus Al Nieren finds your proposal acceptable.”

She knew she was dreaming now, the blue of the moonlight too bright, Lord Velsus’s eyes too mocking as he bowed, then lunged forward to clamp his hand over her mouth . . .

She jerked awake, the shout stifled by the hand trapping her lips against her teeth. Davoka’s eyes were directly above hers, reflecting the bright gleam of the knife in her hand.