Shadow Of The Winter King (Book 1) (29 page)

Regel turned to Ovelia then, and looked down at her sword hovering over his heart as though the steel were of no consequence. “You defend her, do you?”

“As I must,” Ovelia said, lowering her sword.

“I see.” Regel’s eyes followed the line of steel to her hand. “Is your hand well?”

In truth, her hand beat with its own inner fire, sparked from the slap of his blade, but she would not show weakness. “Yes. Very well.”

“Let me see it.” She pulled away, but he caught her hand before she could escape. She might have expected the touch to hurt, but instead his fingers were gentle and warm. Almost soothing.

“Regel,” she said. “I—”

A strangled sound that might have been a word broke the moment.

Regel’s eyes slipped past her. Ovelia looked over her shoulder at Serris, whom she had forgotten was even there. Regel’s squire was staring, hand to the ugly bruise on her cheek where her master had struck her. Then she fled the room.

A loud creak broke the silence as Regel wrenched his blade free of the wall, sheathed it at his belt, and stepped past Ovelia. “This thing is your charge now. I’ll have none of her any longer.”

He paused at the door and looked to the nearby table.

Ovelia followed his gaze and saw the tea tin they’d carried on the
White Dart
. It caught a beam of the light and gleamed. “What is it?” she asked.

“Naught.” He turned to go, then looked back over his shoulder. “I am not some beast like Paeter Ravalis to be lied to and toyed with. It would do you well to remember that.”

And with that, he strode from the room. Ovelia felt empty in his wake—empty and cold.

“Fear not, King’s Shield,” Mask whispered when he was gone. “Our way is open.”

Ovelia shivered.

Twenty-One

O
n Ruin’s Night—the eve
of the new year, the last laugh of the World of Ruin before hope began anew—the skies of Tar Vangr filled with the pops and bangs of mage-crafted pyrotechnics. The Vangryur were not a wealthy folk, but almost every family dipped into the year’s coin to purchase fireworks from city alchemists to light the darkness. The children whooped with delight as they fired the rockets, and the grown folk would sit about guzzling winterwine and bragging about exploits that had never happened.

Few could remember exactly why the eve of the year was a time for such displays. The tradition dated back thousands of years—before the founding of ancient Calatan and its Sorcerus Annis calendar, before the Great Return centuries previous, perhaps even back to the Old World—and the records of the greatest sages were incomplete as to why. Thus, the celebration had come to mean something different to all who practiced it. For some, it welcomed the new year in loud, fiery style, while for others it dispelled the cold of a winter past. For grizzled veterans of the wars, it represented Tar Vangr’s victory over Echvar or even Luether, and for those who still clung to the Old Gods, it was the great annual battle between the Lady of Summer and the Lord of Winter.

For Regel, Ruin’s Night was far from a celebratory occasion. The exploding fires over the city reminded him of watching as Semana’s skyship—the
Heiress
—broke up over the bay five years ago. The smoke that rose from the bursting mage-rockets put him in mind of burning wreckage and seared corpses. And then he had watched the Winter King murdered. His master was gone, his path obscured, his future lost. Why had he not taken his life that very night? Why had he fought so hard to live?

“Pass well, my lord?” Walking at his side, Serris squeezed his hand firmly.

Regel adjusted the mask that did little to hide his identity. “Remembering something Lan Ravalis, of all people, asked of me.”

“Something important?” Serris’s voice was a mere whisper.

Had Regel known somehow that all this would come to pass, that he would walk a dark path for a vain sliver of hope? Or had he merely been a coward, too fearful of death to do what honor demanded?

“It matters not.” Regel shook his head. “Focus on the path ahead.”

Serris nodded and looked up at the brightly lit palace gates, flanked by ironclads that scanned all those walking past. She relaxed her body, and Regel forced himself to do the same.

Strength suffused the palace of Tar Vangr—a sense of timeless power that could endure the worst of Ruin’s storms. A thousand feet above low-city, it stood strong atop and within a towering mountain peak that provided Tar Vangr a spine, while the two city levels became its hollow bones. At the very crown of the palace, the great throne room gazed out into the darkness of the World of Ruin through a half-dome of stained glass. In these latter days, it seemed more a skull than a face, try as the Ravalis might to brighten it with alchemical lights and fanfare. The palace stood eternal: the constructions of man might rot and slide down the mountainside but it would remain, as steadfast as the stone.

At the front gate stood two lancers burnished bright and shining and—Regel noted—fully armed and ready for a fight, as well as half a dozen soldiers armed with thamaturgically enhanced arms and armor. Surprisingly, the dusters didn’t even ask them to remove their eye-masks, much less reveal any weapons they carried. Regel and Serris showed their invitation, and aside from a customary bow, the guards hardly glanced at either before waving them right through.

“That was easy,” Serris said. “Trap?”

“Definitely a trap,” Regel murmured as they passed into the grand foyer.

“Mmm.” Serris seemed distracted.

He would have paid hard coin to know what she was thinking. After what had passed between them the previous night, she had left the Burned Man for a time. From the disgust and fear in her eyes in that moment, he knew she’d been perfectly glad of the opportunity to escape his presence. She’d returned a few hours before the masquerade, and they’d shared only a dozen words in preparation for the night’s festivities. The silence between them now felt like cold air that steamed their breath, and her hand on his was like ice. But they were both of the Circle of Tears, and both knew how to pretend.

The great ballroom hall of the palace was huge and cavernous, with billowing tapestries and imposing statues of old kings that flanked them on all sides. It had an austere beauty, its every carved wall and withered bust speaking of the ancient history of Tar Vangr, the world’s eternal cornerstone. The Ravalis had left their mark on the room, of course: they’d hung massive mage-candle chandeliers and decorating many of the surfaces with gold-plated ornamentation. Many of the queens of Tar Vangr had fallen victim to the refurbishment, and while the statues were still there, the Ravalis had done their best to hide or diminish them with gaudy decoration. Just enough to offend, not enough to provoke. Even Queen Denes, the legendary first ruler of Tar Vangr, had become a painted caricature, almost a woman of negotiable virtue rather than the warrior sorceress who had led her people into this new, harsh world

Fully three hundred folk crowded the hall, representing the bloods of the city, great and thin, as well as a wide assortment of warders and servants. They wore every sort of color, except the blue and green of Vultara and the red and green of Dracaris. Most avoided green altogether: it was a cursed color, hearth wisdom said, and would call the angels down upon a wearer. Regel and Serris, having no noble blood, had chosen subtle tones. Regel wore earthen hues and added a scarlet half-cape as a gesture of respect to the Ravalis’s favored crimson. Serris wore black and had opted for a scarf of Ravalis blue, their lesser Blood color. Many attendees wore such tokens of loyalty, though Regel suspected most meant it only as much as he and Serris did.

In the center of the grand hall, dark-skinned, flame-haired summerborn whirled and leaped and clapped in an energetic dance of the southland. The stately Vangryur did not dance this way, and Regel thought it odd to see the Ravalis asserting their distinct culture so keenly. The dancers were few, though they drew a great deal of attention with their daring outfits and alluring movements. Lenalin had hated every aspect of the Ravalis, except their dance. Regel could have watched her on the floor all night.

No attack seemed forthcoming in the hall full of laughter and merriment, so Regel relaxed slightly. “Circle,” he instructed Serris. “Hear what you can.”

The woman nodded without meeting his eyes and broke away from him casually. She cut through the revelers like a stalking cat, glimpsed only when she wished. He had trained her well.

Regel found an out-of-the-way corner and grasped the mostly finished dawnstone carving in his pocket. He would need a new carving project after this night. How well the symmetry flowed: he had finished a jackal for Paeter Ravalis five years ago, a dragon for Ovelia in Luether, and now he drew close to completing this piece. He only hoped he got the chance to give this as it was meant to be given.

He fell into contemplation of its lines and shape, letting his awareness expand and take in the other revelers. Bloodlord Fars Vargaen, in his red military tunic with many chains and sword-shaped brooches, argued loudly with blue-and-gold draped Captain Vette Saras, Bloodlady of her family of skyship builders. The two were discussing building a whole fleet of ships, which would need crews under Vargaen’s command. Regel heard a private talk between a purple-and-crimson clad heir of Blood Rolan and a trader of Blood Yaela. These bloods had made their fortune from trade in all sorts of flesh and steel, and they would surely provide both soldiers and provisions to a war effort.

Serris reappeared. “Nothing to report,” she said. “The usual posturing and intrigue. You?”

“There is much talk of this war you mentioned,” Regel said. “Can it have come so close?”

Serris shrugged. “Has it ever been far?”

Indeed, since the Children had conquered Luether all those years ago, rumors had circulated of a looming war. Rarely, however, had they become open declarations, but from what Serris had told him of the encounter she’d witnessed between Kiereth Yaela and Prince Lan, Regel felt uneasy. Regel wondered whether King Demetrus’s death would spark or avert such a war. It would certainly plunge the city into the chaos of succession for a time, which was bad enough. Would Luether muster an army in the interim?

Regel shook that frightful concept away. “Any sign of the others?”

Serris shook her head. “One of us should have entered with them.”

“I offered,” Regel murmured. “Better to let them arrive alone, so they are not marked.” Through her mask, Serris was looking at him intently. “What passes?” he asked.

“Naught.” Her hand rose, seemingly unbidden, to her powdered cheek.

Regel tried to ignore the itch in his fingers, which reminded him of striking her. “Can we talk?”

“No, m’lord. No need.”

Regel’s stomach turned. “Serris—”

“We should dance,” she said. “Folk are staring.”

The fire dancers in the center of the room had moved away, clearing the space for the more staid and dignified dancing of the winterborn. Serris turned her face away from Regel and would not meet his eyes. Regel fell into the rhythm of the steps, bowed to the women who greeted him in the circle, and watched for Ovelia and Mask. He wondered if they would even make it through the door without being caught, and for a moment, Regel hoped they
would
be caught. Before the previous night, he had almost come to trust them. He’d even considered telling Ovelia about the venom in her belly, however angry it made her. Now, she’d chosen her ally, and it was not him.

He supposed it mattered little. After tonight, all would be finished—one way or another.

“Hmm.” Serris was looking at something over Regel’s shoulder.

Regel nodded, and she slipped around him. He gazed after her but couldn’t see what she had seen. Instead, he looked around the ballroom from amongst the whirling dancers.

On the dais beside the vacant thrones, he saw that several of the Ravalis had arrived. Prince Lan wore an open tunic to show off the great tattoo of a bear on his chest, and his mask was a furry head Regel imagined had once actually belonged to a living bear. The Bear was his personal crest, while his brother Paeter had been the Jackal, for his mocking laughter. He saw Garin standing beside Lan on the dais, dressed more conservatively in muted crimson with a plain black eye-mask and a warpick at his belt, studying all in attendance. He wore no pelt, but then, that was just like a fox to hide its true skin amongst the hens. The Fox of Luether was a mystery to him, and mysteries were dangerous. Also present were two lesser Ravalis cousins Regel barely knew—Boulis the Hound and Tolus the Falcon, sons of Demetrus’s younger brother Toblius—and their fauther Toblius, Demetrus’s younger half-brother. He saw too Alcha Ravalis nô Varas, Toblius’s wife, as well as Lan’s wife, Laegra Ravalis nô Vargaen: a weathered skeleton of a woman who nonetheless bore herself with the grace that only a neglected noble knew. And that was all: five bloodlords and two bloodbond allies. Hardly a horde, but a fitting show of solidarity.

It occurred to Regel that he had not seen the Ravalis gathered in one place for some time, and that their house seemed so small now—almost as diminished as the Blood of Denerre had been in the end.

“Is that not the Lord of Tears? Tar Vangr’s
second
greatest slayer, here amongst us.”

It was only when he heard the familiar chill whisper that Regel looked up into the masked face of the dancer opposite him in his circle. Bending low in an elegant—if stiff—curtsy, the lady wore a tight, snowy white gown trimmed in silver, its filmy silk covering every trace of her skin. She wore a burst of silver lace at her throat and a silver-banded, broad-brimmed hat, which covered her face as she inclined toward him. When she rose to meet his eye, her face hid behind a porcelain doll’s mask painted with a wide, innocuous smile.

Regel’s eyes widened but he hid his gape behind a raised hand. “By the Fire.”

“I shall take your surprise as flattery,” Mask said.

Across the way, Serris also looked startled, her face pale.

Regel raised his hands to join with Mask’s—her long, silk-shrouded fingers interlaced his and her palms felt very hot, as though the leather wrapped heated steel rather than flesh. They turned, but Regel saw only Mask’s doll face, not the room. Was she smiling as the mask was?

“Grotesque,” Regel said.

“Isn’t it?” Mask sounded pleased. “I think it suits me.”

“Remind me to have a talk with Nacacia,” Regel said. “Unless she doesn’t know you borrowed her gown?”

“It looks better on me.”

Regel shivered. “Where is Lady Dracaris?”

Mask’s child-smile mocked him. “You mean
Lord
Dracaris, I think.”

She nodded to where Serris danced with a handsome man dressed in faded red and Bloodless browns as well as a dull black leather belt that hardly matched the rest of his attire. He wore his vivid red hair tied back in a tail to the shoulders and a red half-mask hid his face down to his thin lips. His movements, posture, and dress were all what Regel might expect of the son of a minor lord of Tar Vangr, out to court a bride. Except that of course he was no man at all.

“Whose decision was this?” Regel asked.

“I grew tired of playing the man.”

Regel wanted to part their hands—to find another partner—but he saw Garin watching from his place on the dais. Creating a disruption in the crowd of dancers would draw unwanted attention for certain. He bit his lip and danced on, hoping to enjoy himself.

It was not so difficult. Seeing the enthralled faces of revelers—lords and ladies turning in circles, laughing and flirting—reminded him of such moments under the Winter King’s reign. Too many nights to number, he had watched from a raised balcony or even from within the crowd itself as Lenalin—laughing and smiling to rival the light of the sun—danced the hours away with partner after partner. Silently, he would imagine he was dancing with her. Privately, he would dream that he was the cause of her smile.