Shadow Of The Winter King (Book 1) (24 page)

Draca drank it all—everything Mask could hurl at it. Ovelia pushed herself up until she stood tall amongst a storm of flames. She stepped forward and placed her sword tip against Mask’s helm.

At that, the sorcerer let the power die away and stood panting. Its narrow chest heaved and its hands curled. Ovelia could see that the sorcerer was in agony.

“Does all pass well?” She reached toward Mask’s face.

“Away!” Mask slapped at her extended hand and held up its still-burning talon.

Shadows poured from Draca in sudden warning. Ovelia managed to bring the blade around, but she couldn’t parry the packing trunk with her sword. It dashed her to the floor with breathless force.

“Did you think my magic meant only for attack?” Mask asked.

Ovelia lay stunned as the trunk rose of its own accord, then slammed down into her a second time. Draca clattered across the floorboards. The fires of its magic dimmed as it lay, untouched.

“I appear to have won, Bloodbreaker.” Mask leaned down. “Yield.”

Ovelia struggled vainly against the traveler’s chest pressing her down. She fought and thrashed like an animal caught in a trap. She could scream, but no one would hear through Mask’s warding over the door. She was alone.

“Bloodbreaker, really,” Mask said. “This is no way to behave with dignity.”

Ovelia cried out and pushed herself halfway loose. The chest scraped along her battered body, awakening new hurts. She felt a deep pain in the pit of her stomach, as though someone had driven a spike through her. She thrashed and struggled against Mask’s power.

She had to get up. She had to keep fighting. Semana needed her.

Semana...

“Bloodbreaker,” Mask said, warning in its voice. “Yield now.”

Ovelia opened her mouth to speak, but all that issued forth was a moan so piteous that even Mask stopped, taken aback by the cry. At once, all the fight left Ovelia, and she slumped back onto the floor. “Kill me, then,” she said. “Kill me and have done with it.”

“Why?” Mask asked.

“What does it matter?” Tears pooled against Ovelia’s nose and fell across her cheeks. “I
abandoned
Semana. I left her, when I should have believed in her.”

Mask stared at Ovelia without comprehension.

“I gave everything for her from the moment of her birth—my duty, my honor, my body—and when she died, I kept giving for her. And now...
now
you tell me she lives?” Ovelia uttered a tiny cry of pain. “You cannot say something worse to me.”

“I—” Mask seemed momentarily unsettled. Then the sorcerer set its jaw. “I did not know you for a hateful woman, Bloodbreaker. To hate so many, so much... it is neither godly nor noble of you.”

“I hate no one so much as you.”

“Except yourself?” Mask asked. “I see it now. You hide your face—shroud your name in any of a hundred masks. King’s Shield, Bloodbreaker, Shroud... Why do you hate yourself so much?”

“Don’t—” Ovelia coughed and shook her head to clear it. She thought of Regel making love to her and calling her by another’s name. “Don’t pretend you understand. Don’t you dare.”

“I certainly know what is is to hate yourself,” Mask said. “You remind me of me.”

“Old Gods, I was wrong,” Ovelia said. “There
is
something worse you could say to me.”

Mask knelt, knees popping, and brushed a lock of hair out of Ovelia’s tear-streaked face. “You and I are creatures of retribution. We have suffered great wrongs, and they must be avenged.”

“My only vengeance lies in your death,” Ovelia said. “So kill me now, for I will never stand beside you.”

The sorcerer considered her a moment. Then it rose and made a dismissive gesture with its silver gauntlet. The magic faltered, and the tremendous weight lifted from the trunk pinning Ovelia down. Suddenly, sounds rushed into the cabin—clanking, scraping, and the whir of mage-engines. Mask’s ward had vanished from the doors to the corridor.

Ovelia shifted the trunk off herself. She felt intact, though the trunk would leave substantial bruises across her middle. Draca gleamed on the floor just a pace away. Slowly, not daring to look back at Mask, she reclaimed the blade.

Let there be an end to it. Let Mask’s lies come to nothing, and let Semana be avenged.

When she turned, however, the sorcerer stood apart from her, reaching back to unbuckle the burned iron clasps of its mask. Ovelia smelled sweat and ash, mingled with the scent of blood. Battle—that was what Mask smelled like. Battle and death.

“What are you doing?” Ovelia asked.

“I will show you the hate upon my face,” Mask said. “Perhaps then, you will understand why I must do this thing—and why you must help me.”

Ovelia tightened her grasp on Draca.

The leather creaked as Mask loosened the belt clasp then drew the back wide. Spider-like fingers trailed up along the rim of the mask and curled beneath the edge. Then Mask pulled the leather away with a sucking sound.

Ovelia’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. There were words, but she could not speak them—could hardly
think
them.

“Now,” the face beneath the mask whispered. “Let us talk plainly, Ovelia Dracaris.”

* * *

Regel stood on the raised aft deck of the
Avenger
, carving while he watched the narcissistic nobles taking their ease on the middle deck. It pained him to see the mighty skyship turned from the most fearsome weapon in Tar Vangr’s fleet to a glorified orgy barge, but he supposed all folk had to cope with the madness of a broken world in their own way.

He could not deny the utility of the skyship, in particular the marvelous difference between travel by air and sea. It would take only a single night to fly to Tar Vangr—a journey that had taken more than a quarter-moon by ship. If they kept hidden for that long, they could reach their destination unmolested.

He suspected few on the Avenger would pause in attending their own pleasures to consider three passengers who did not partake. On the main deck below him, men and women coupled with abandon in the great pool of water or reclined on benches, trying vainly to catch the last rays of the setting sun. This far south, folk lost their inhibitions, blaming their indiscretions on the proximity of Luether. Perhaps the laws of morality and order waned as one moved south, and chaos crept into the minds and bodies of those who came to the Summerland. That was their great excuse, at least—it was imminently fashionable to “give into Ruin” without ever actually experiencing the misery of a city where it held sway.

Had the same sort of madness driven Regel into Ovelia’s bed? He could not say. His mind became no clearer as they journeyed north, however.

As night fell, the nobles retired to rut in their privy chambers or communal halls, replaced by crew who went to work cleaning the main deck, maintaining the ship, and securing cargo. Men grunted and heaved, strapping crates in place and lowering them into the hold. The great gold rings revolving around the ship hummed disconsolately in the mystic grip of the
Avenger
’s sorcerer pilot.

Ovelia joined Regel at the rail looking out over the main deck.

“You just left Mask alone?” Regel carved a fleck of stone from the dawnstone chunk and tossed it over the side. The stone was soft, almost as easy to work as wood.

Ovelia hesitated before she replied, and when she did, her voice was somber. “Would you feel better if I said I chopped its head off?”

“Perhaps,” Regel allowed.

“Well, in that case...” Ovelia waved her hand. She left the jest unfinished.

The night lengthened as the skyship shuddered its way through the clouds.

“Thirty years past,” Regel finally said, drawing Ovelia’s sidelong gaze. He made two quick cuts in the stone. “Thirty years past, this ship carried five thousand soldiers to war. I rode it myself, when first I carried steel for the Winter King.” Regel swept his hand across, indicating the crew and passengers milling about the main deck. “Now, it can barely manage a few hundred passengers.”

“All things fade with age,” Ovelia said. “As you and I have.”

“Fitting.” Regel looked away, down into the surf crashing on flame-shrouded rocks far below. The water hissed into steam as it rose, and white curled up toward them.

“A fitting name, as well.” Ovelia nodded toward the bow, where perched a figurehead statue: spear-wielding Arys, the angel of vengeance. “
Avenger
.”

“Vengeance upon the Usurper,” Regel said.

Ovelia nodded soberly.

The vibration in the deck was less now that the journey was underway. The sorcerers of the
Avenger
had wrestled the mage-engines into quiescence. It flew toward Tar Vangr as smoothly as a river flowing inevitably toward the sea.

“We have to do it,” Ovelia said. “We have to help Mask.”

Regel nodded. “He leaves us little choice.”

“It—
he
doesn’t.” Ovelia looked away and closed her eyes. “If we kill Demetrus, it will lead to war. You know that it will.”

“Yes.” Regel turned the dawnstone in his hands, exploring its facets. No clear image had occurred to him as yet, but now he began to see what he would carve.

“This will be the spark that lights the flame of the Last War,” Ovelia said. “Many, many more will die from this—perhaps the last of Calatan’s heirs.” She shivered. “We will bring Ruin.”

“Yes.” Regel put his hand on her arm. “Do you trust me, Tall-Sister?”

“I do.”

He drew her into his arms and kissed her. Ovelia reached her hand up around his neck and returned the kiss. He might have lost himself in her embrace, but he sensed hesitation in her.

Mask had done something to her, Regel thought, and now she was unnerved.

“What is it?” Ovelia pulled away.

“Naught.” Regel squeezed her hand. “You should rest.”

“You mean... I should share a chamber with Mask?” Ovelia looked further unsettled.

“Let Mask sleep in the trunk,” Regel said. “Just because we walk where he guides us does not mean we have to spend time with him.”

Ovelia accepted this with a nod, though Regel felt again that hint of hesitation in her bearing. What was she hiding?

“And where will
you
sleep...
Lord of Tears
?” She made the last words a rasping imitation of Mask’s broken voice, such that Regel chuckled.

“
Bloodbreaker
,” he mimed back, though he confessed her imitation was better than his own. Ovelia had ever had a gift for mimicry. “I suspect I’d find little sleep in a cabin with you.”

“Bestain my virtue!” Ovelia smirked, seeming for a moment like young Lenalin, who had honed innocent flirtation to such a point as could pierce steel.

“I shall simply have to accompany you, Lady Dracaris,” he said. “I suspect you won’t close your eyes without me.”

“Certain of my bed, eh?” Ovelia pressed her lips to Regel’s cheek. “It is that sort of confidence I admire in you.”

She left him then, standing as he did watching the waves far below. His mind turned to the poison yet working in her—he had been taking care to delay it with judicious servings of food and tea laced with sweetsoul powder. He considered telling her, but he wanted to know why she was playing him first. If he revealed his treachery now, she would never trust him.

Also, it was too late to save her. What would be the purpose of it?

He gazed out into the encroaching dark.

Sixteen

I
n his dream, she
stood before him, a radiant angel with silver-blonde hair down to her waist. Her white gown swirled around her as she turned to him, laughing.

“Come, Regel,” said her voice. “Dance with me.”

He opened his mouth, but the words refused to emerge. What could he say?

“Do you not love me, Regel?” she asked, her eyes pleading. “Won’t you love me?”

But he shook his head, light trailing in arcs from his eyes. “I swore an oath.”

She disappeared then, her perfect, willowy form dissolving into the folds of her white gown. The fabric flowed around him like mist, then vanished entirely. For a moment, he was all alone in the candlelit room, breathing shallowly in the thickness of her lingering scent.

“Lenalin,” he murmured. “Princess—”

Then she lay in his arms, blood pouring from her mouth and trickling from her eyes. Her body was a wasteland of flapping cuts and deep gouges. She gasped and choked and tried to say his name. His hands soaked up her blood like sponges as he tried to cover her wounds, but there were too many.

Her eyes opened and met his. “My child,” she said, her voice burbling. “Where is my—?”

* * *

Regel awoke, still and unmoving in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar place. A woman lay beside him, her left thigh cushioning his head. She was not Lenalin, even if both of them wished her to be.

He wanted to scream and scratch his skin to ribbons to get rid of the blood he still felt on his hands. But he had dreamed this dream a thousand times before—twice that—and he knew the terror that gripped him when he awoke. Knew it and could master it.

He sat up and let his breathing slow. He clenched and unclenched his fingers. He let his mind remember that he was not Regel Frostburn, Shadow of the Winter King, but Regel Oathbreaker, the Lord of Tears, an old man with a new purpose.

Beside him, Ovelia stirred. He felt her naked body tense as she came awake all at once.

“What is it?” she asked in a cool voice below a whisper. Hers was the voice of a warrior, ever prepared to reach for steel at a heartbeat’s warning.

“Naught.” He laid a hand on her hip. Her skin was warm, her muscles powerful. He leaned down to kiss her shoulder. “We are safe as yet. Sleep.”

She did as he asked, though her eyes closed slowly. She rolled onto her stomach and pressed her face against his thigh. With one hand, Regel explored the gentle curve of her back, the crimson dragon inked in her flesh, the soft swell of her breast pressed against the sheets. She shivered when he traced her spine with his fingers, then sighed in release when he drew his hand away. Ovelia was a different woman, yes—fuller, stronger, harder—but still he could not help seeing Lenalin when he looked upon her.

“
We have used each other before
,” she had said.

At length, Ovelia’s breathing turned to the gentle rhythms of sleep. He sat for a time, naked in the chamber beside her slumbering form, and contemplated his hands. Finally, he scraped them together to remove the sweat. Despite his dream, it was not blood.

Regel pulled away.

* * *

Out on the deck of the
Avenger
, the night became increasingly cold as Tar Vangr grew close. No wonder the nightmare had returned. After the stifling warmth of the bedchamber, the air fell upon Regel’s face like a chill rain. His neck and chin prickled with two days of gray-black stubble. He sniffed and rubbed his nose, then climbed the stairs to the upper deck, where the cold had chased away even the most dedicated hedonists.

It was as he climbed the fifth step that he heard it—a soft crooning hum, like a siren’s song on the night’s breezes. He froze on the stairs and listened. He knew the tune: the gentle caress of notes almost like a lullaby. A vision came to him of a beautiful, silver-haired lady clad in a flowing white nightgown, who stood at the window over a wide winter-garden and sang. Was he still dreaming?

Fingers shaking as he gripped the rail, Regel climbed quickly and silently, eyes constantly moving for a sign of danger. He had not worn a weapon up onto the deck, but for
her
, though, he could tear men apart with his naked fingers—he could shatter stone with his fists.

He gained the upper deck and looked around wildly for a heartbeat before his eyes fell on a figure at the rail. Its black cloak blended into the night beyond the
Avenger
’s rail, and Regel saw it with such suddenness it startled him: Mask.

It was
Mask
who was singing.

Somehow, its cracked vocal cords produced a melody so haunting in its beauty that he could hardly think. The sorcerer sang into the darkness, its voice neither low nor high but somewhere between. Coming from that creature, it must be a song of mourning, and not of love. Regel stood and listened. The familiar song bore him away to another, softer time. Finally, he could take no more.

“Do you not think it dangerous,” Regel said. “To stand in the open and sing?”

Mask turned so suddenly Regel realized he’d come upon the sorcerer by surprise. Its red eyes opened wide for a heartbeat, but composure quickly returned. “Danger is the point, Lord of Tears,” Mask said. “The question is: did you like it?”

Regel shrugged. “Your voice is fair.”

“A compliment,” said the sorcerer. “And from you, Lord of Tears. I am flattered.”

Regel shrugged and leaned against the rail. He tried hard to keep his voice level. “Where did you learn that melody?”

“Here and there,” Mask said. “That is not such an uncommon song. Surely your mother sang it over you when you were a babe. Did it awaken your memory, perhaps?”

It had, but not a memory of his mother. Had Mask caused his dream?

The sorcerer always seemed to sense his distress with unnerving skill. “Does this song carry a bad memory, Lord of Tears? What manner of monster would I be to disturb your rest needlessly? I will stop.”

“If you wish to sing on, do not let me stop you,” Regel said.

“Very well. Pretend not to care.” The sorcerer made a snuffling noise. “I sing only when I am alone. Pardon me if I do not wish to expose my flaws to you.”

“Of course.”

They looked into the empty night for a time, and Regel listened to Mask’s ragged breathing. It no longer pained him to hear the rasping sound.

“A woman I once knew,” he said at length. “She loved that song.”

“Oh?” Mask asked. “And what happened to her, I wonder?”

In his memory, Regel heard Lenalin’s beautiful voice contorted in cries of agony. He heard the bells announcing death in the house of Winter.

“Troubled sleep, Lord of Tears?” Mask asked. “Is yon strumpet not to your liking? She seems lovely and willing enough.”

“A curious sentiment for a creature without lusts.”

“I never claimed I had no lusts,” Mask said. “To desire and not to act is merely restraint. I might desire your woman as well, Lord of Tears, were I yet a man.” The red eyes slid to him. “Does it reassure you or unsettle you, to think of me desiring another creature?”

“Why would I care?” Regel asked.

“If I am merely a monster, you know me in one way, and can easily face your fear,” Mask said. “If I am rather a man, ah, then that is different.”

Regel had expected Mask to be vile, treacherous, and horrid to behold, but he had never expected wisdom. “Perhaps,” he said. “But man or no, I imagine you are beyond such things.”

“How true. I am no longer the man I once was.” Mask stretched, bending his arm backward to an almost impossible angle. “You are kind to hide it, but I see you cringe when you look upon me,” he said. “Tell me, how many men have you left ruined as I am? Have you looked into any of their eyes?”

“No.” Regel looked down at his hands. He could still feel Lenalin’s blood upon them. He would not think of her eyes—her beautiful, diamond-like eyes. “I look away.”

“You should not,” Mask said. “You might be surprised what you find in the eyes of the dying.”

Regel looked hard at Mask, his mind alight. Of a sudden, he was possessed of a burning urge to see what lay beneath the black leather mask. The sorcerer wielded several ensorcelled relics, but no power of its own, at least as far as he knew. Since anyone could use those devices, given time and training, that mask could hide anyone’s face.

“You are wondering why you find me familiar,” Mask said.

Was he so easy to read? Regel shook himself. “What do you mean?”

“It is like looking into a mirror, perhaps? To see your darkness outside. Unmasked.” Mask drew deeply of the night air. “We are not like the Dracaris woman. Warrior she may be, but she is only flesh and sinew, breath and bone.”

“I am made of such things.” Regel tamped his pipe. “You are not?”

“This business,” Mask said. “It is why folk such as you and I are born. We are blades forged of flesh. Thin skin stretched tight over sharp steel. You, me—we are weapons.”

“Weapons,” Regel said.

“Our bodies are ephemeral, like egg shells that nurture the serpent within. Until one day, we break free of our shells and understand the world.” One gloved hand indicated the stairs, ostensibly pointing toward Ovelia’s adjoining chamber. “The Bloodbreaker’s shell is just beginning to crack. She will find her darkness soon—or she will die.”

“What makes you think she has darkness?”

Mask regarded him sidelong. “We all have darkness, Lord of Tears,” it said. “Only some of us choose to wear it like skin. For some of us—” Mask’s fingers slid over the black leather wrapping its face. “For some of us, it
is
our skin.”

Regel paused. “Is there no skin beneath that mask?”

“Perhaps.” Mask’s teeth flashed. “Care to see?”

Regel felt the half-carved shape of the dawnstone sculpture in his pocket. Its touch emboldened him. “Did Ovelia react any better to this speech?” he asked. “It seemed a bit rushed to me.”

Mask considered him a moment, then uttered a guttural laugh. “Was that a jest, Lord of Tears? That, I did not expect.” It turned back to the rail.

Neither spoke for a time. Rather, they stood together staring into the abyss. The air was far clearer over the Dusk Sea than near one of the mage-cities, and they could see hints of stars twinkling far above.

“Why do you want him dead?” Regel asked. “To prove that you can, or for vengeance?”

Mask gazed off into the night.

“Do you look, Lord of Tears?” the sorcerer asked. “Into the darkness, I mean.”

“No,” he said.

“Pity.” Mask looked at him. “You remind me of him, you know—my old squire.”

“The one you dismissed from your service with a shredded face for his pains?”

“Indeed. Davargorn is his name.
Davar
means ‘the one who kills’ in the tongue of Old Calatan.”

“I know it.” Regel knew also that
gorn
was the word for “son,” though if Davargorn was the son, Regel did not wish to meet the father. Perhaps Mask itself bore that dubious honor.

“He is gone, and now I have no slayer to destroy my foes for me.”

“What a shame that is.” He turned to go.

“I wonder—will
you
slay for me, Regel?” The red eyes bored into his and the lips spread in a thin, cruel smile. Its voice was husky. “Can you?”

Regel paused on the stairs, remembering similar words from long ago.

Will you slay for me, Regel?
Lenalin had asked him.
Can you?

“That woman you knew, who sang that song,” the sorcerer said. “I’m sure she forgives you.”

Wordless, Regel descended to his cabin, lay down beside Ovelia, and slept.

* * *

Again, Regel dreamed the same dream.

Lenalin appeared again, one breath beautiful, the next beaten and ruined beyond repair.

But now, instead of dying as her blood poured over him like an endless flood, she rose up, smiled cruelly, and donned a black leather mask.