Shadow Of The Winter King (Book 1) (9 page)

Lan Ravalis.

Serris disentangled herself from Kiereth and hurried to her clothes, which lay strewn across his chair by the window. The Heir of Ravalis had come here? She could not have foreseen this. She pushed aside her frilly tunic and found the only weapon she would need: the dagger Regel had given her the night they’d first met.

“What is—?” Kiereth asked sleepily. He watched Serris strapping on her ridiculous attire with some disappointment.

“I have to go,” she said, sliding on her leggings.

“I was hoping you’d stay all night,” Kiereth said. “I’ve sent for a fine bottle of Echvaari Gold, from three years before the fall. You can taste the spring rain—”

“I’m sure it’s wonderful.” Serris slipped into her undertunic.

Kiereth put his hands on her shoulders and kissed the spot where her neck met her shoulder. Damn the man, he knew she could hardly resist that.

“I know you are not satisfied,” he said, as though it were a great revelation. “Perhaps you could call that beautiful bodyguard of yours—Erim, was it? I’m sure between the two of us we can fix that.”

“Tempting, Sweet Yaela, but no,” Serris said. “I have to—”

Knuckles rapped on the door, which swung open a crack. Serris could hear Lan in the hall, arguing with Kiereth’s steward, Norat, and knew she had only an instant. She bundled up her silken gown and dagger in her arms and climbed into Kiereth’s standing wardrobe. She wedged herself between the hanging coats, folding her legs so that the door could just about shut, then watched through the seam.

“I’ll see the lord when I please,” Lan shoved his way past a flustered steward.

He was beautiful, Serris gave him that, with the majesty of a towering bear in the instant before it pounces like an avalanche. Danger lurked in the hard lines of his jaw and strong chin, and his eyes gleamed like fire. Serris prided herself on fearing few men, but he was one such—rumors called him a sadist, on the battlefield or in the bedchamber. How he and Kiereth Yaela had maintained their odd friendship for so long, Serris could not guess.

“Thank you, Norat.” Kiereth had managed to pull on a robe, and he regarded Lan with one of his winning smiles. “Welcome, your Highness. Will you take wine? I’ve an Echvaari Gold, one of the last bottles from before the fall. You can taste the spring rain in the glass.”

“That will do.” With the door closed, Lan had stopped shouting, but his calm had not returned. “Old gods, Kiereth—it smells like whore in here.”

“I assure you,” he said, “we are quite alone.”

“You had a woman in here earlier.” Lan sniffed at the air and scowled. “The stench of her cunt is everywhere. Tell me, did she please you? I hope you beat her soundly for her trouble.”

The words were merely words, but the unbridled contempt in Lan’s voice made Serris’s skin tighten over her bones. She’d never got the chance to avenge herself against Paeter, but she would very much like to kill his brother if the opportunity arose. Her heart pounded in her throat. Watching him, listening to him, it was all she could do not to burst from hiding and attack Lan on the spot.

“Your Highness knows where my heart truly lies. You can tell me anything.” Kiereth’s smile widened. “
Anything
.”

Lan gave him a cool look, then turned to the wine. He opened it without grace, grunting as he strained at the cork, which broke as it came free. What a clumsy beast of a man.

“Your council is driving me insane,” Lan said. “You sit and you talk and you argue and nothing ever gets done. And my father nods and smiles while your damned edicts tie our hands. The blades are sharpened, the soldiers mustered, the damn engines are almost ready. And still you hamper us.”

“The ill-advised push into fallen Echvar, you mean?” Kiereth took a goblet of wine. “Best you content yourself with some of their wine. That place is long lost.”

Serris nodded. Kiereth had told her the Ravalis sought to conquer some of the fertile lands of the east, looking to the overgrown Echvaari forests to replace Tar Vangr’s dwindling timber supply. The fall to Ruin had turned Echvar’s trees into spindly, brittle things, but poor wood was better than no wood.

“Echvar? Hardly.” Lan chuckled dryly and he drained his goblet. “What use a rotting grove of trees, when the true prize lies south across the Dusk Sea?”

“I do not understand, Highness. What prize?”

“War, Kiereth,” Lan said. “Luether, and war.”

War
. Serris stiffened at the word. The Ravalis had made noises about going to war to reclaim their ancestral home for years, but none had ever taken the suggestion as anything more than a fond wish. Now she had it from Lan’s own mouth, completely in earnest. Serris could not help but think Regel’s departure for the southern city spurred the timing. Was the drive to war a cover for killing her master?

But no, it sounded as though the Ravalis had been drumming for this war for years. Lan spoke of troops and arms at the ready, and skyships waiting to be launched. And Kiereth looked not a whit surprised by Lan’s pronouncements. Why hadn’t he mentioned the war effort to her?

Kiereth cast an inquiring glance back at the wardrobe, and Serris considered what—if any—signal to give him. She wanted to know more, but Kiereth was in danger enough as it was. Serris knew he and the prince were friends, but there was something strong between them that unnerved her.

“Speak to me, Lan.” Kiereth assumed a smooth tone. “Your words I will hold in confidence.”

The Heir of Blood Yaela stepped behind Lan Ravalis and grasped his shoulders. At first, the Prince tensed, but after glancing around to make sure they were unobserved, he relaxed.

“Stupid,” Lan said. “The council, the king, this whole city—all so stupid. And now they’re blind, as well, with our spymaster fled.”

“So the rumors are true,” Kiereth said. “And the Shroud is gone.”

“It’s all the Nar-burned Bloodbreaker,” he said. “We should have killed the whore the night she slew the Winter King for us, but no—‘she might be useful,’ my father said, so we stayed our hand. And now look at this disaster. All falls to Ruin.”

He looked vulnerable, but Serris could tell anger was churning inside him, ready to erupt. Serris realized what Kiereth intended—he had seduced her in a similar way many times before—and shook her head violently. Oblivious, the lord knelt before Lan as he sat on the bed.

“Pass well.” Kiereth touched Lan’s thigh. “All passes well.”

It was too much. Lan shook himself as though to wake from a dream, and his face turned bright red. “You dare?” He slapped the hand away and leaped to his feet. “You
dare
touch me.”

Kiereth looked surprised. “Your Highness, I—”

Lan seized him by the throat and wrenched his words to nothing. As much as the Ravalis hated women, they hated men who loved other men more.

“You filthy northerners and your perverse ways. We should have burned this damned city to the ground five years ago. Then, we could start anew without your simpering filth.” Lan sneered at Kiereth. “I was wrong, wasn’t I? It wasn’t some girl you had in here but a boy, wasn’t it? You sicken me.”

He tossed Kiereth onto the bed and stormed away, trailing curses in his wake. Norat stepped in his path, but Lan shoved him against the wall and walked on, heedless.

Serris slipped from the wardrobe toward the stricken Heir of Yaela. “Kiereth.”

“Such a fool.” Kiereth’s face was pale, and his lip trembled. “I crossed the line with him, so that I could find out more for you. For you.” He looked at her with resentful anticipation.

Serris knew she was supposed to thank him, to play the helpless damsel and kiss her hero in gratitude, but she had never been that woman. Kiereth had lied to her, or at least failed to mention that Lan was pushing for war with Luether. “I didn’t ask you to seduce him,” she said. “If you offended the prince, the fault is yours.”

Kiereth eyes widened, then his face grew dark. There was no sweet flirtation about his tone now. “Get out,
whore
.”

“With gladness,
lord
.” She made her word for him sting just as much.

* * *

When Serris found Erim in the waiting chambers of Castle Yaela, only then did it occur to her that she’d been terribly selfish. She’d been well hidden from Lan in Kiereth’s chambers, but poor Erim must have faced a much trickier situation when the prince burst in unannounced with Old-Gods-knew how many guardsmen. She hadn’t even considered Erim at all, content to rely upon his practical mind to save him from danger. He awaited her, as dependable and unchanging as always.

“We’re going.” Serris wrapped her scarf tight around her neck against the waiting cold. “And I don’t think we’ll be back.”

“Not to the Blood of Yaela?” Erim asked. “Pity. You speak well of the Heir.”

“No longer.” Serris gave him a hard look. “And stop hiding your smile. You could at least pretend to be upset we’ve lost an important fulcrum to leverage the council.”

The youth wore a neutral expression but his eyes were delighted. “Yes, Syr.”

“Kiereth will have none of me again,” she said. “I’ll have to see about getting Nacacia into his bed, or perhaps a boy. Meron, perhaps. Or you. He mentioned inviting you for next time.”

That wiped away Erim’s mirth, and he returned a sober nod.

Serris sighed. It was no secret Erim would be pleased she had broken with Kiereth. Whenever she kept these assignations, he insisted on escorting her, and every time after he gave her a longing look. Serris knew he thought of her as more than a mistress and occasional bedmate, but she didn’t have the time to lay all her knives on the table with him. She had too much to do. The Ravalis spymaster gone? A brewing war? The Summer King was weaker than she had dreamed and distracted, too.

“Let’s away,” she said. “I wish our lord would return. He’d know what move to make.”

Outside, Serris looked up into the night sky of high-city, which swirled with dark snow. Doom was brewing in this place, as a city braced for war. She offered a prayer to the Old Gods to protect her master.

“Be safe, Lord of Tears,” she prayed, touching the dagger he’d given her. “Return to me.”

Six

The Dusk Sea

T
wo nights after the
duel, it came to pass much as Regel had expected. That first night on the
Dart
, he’d seen Ovelia and the captain share a glance he had not understood. The following day, during the duel, Fersi had given Ovelia such a look as to have broken her concentration in battle. It had taken two more days to determine the significance of their connection.

By the Narfire, the woman could be subtle.

They had spent that afternoon floating toward a dark hulk that rose out of the sea, visible for miles. The waters darkened as they approached, filled with oily sludge that would strangle any monstrosity that tried to breathe it. Fersi and Ovelia stood on the forecastle, and Regel could hear a familiar ease in their voices. He joined them unobtrusively, but of course Ovelia noticed his approach.

“Surely you cannot mean to make berth at Atropis,” Regel said to the captain.

Ovelia looked irked at his abrupt tone. They’d not spoken and hardly seen each other since the duel, but she looked to be recovering well. She had not even needed a sling. “Atropis?” she asked without guile, perpetuating the disguise of the Lady Aniset and her servant.

The captain scented a story to be told, and his natural charm took over. “Once, these waters were called the Compass Sea, pointing from the capital Atropis to the four points of the Empire: Angarak, Tar Vangr, Echvar, and Luether.” He gestured in each of the four directions, starting west, then north, east, and south. “When Ruin befell the Empire of Calatan, the sea darkened and sailors would wander its waters almost blind. Hence, the Dusk Sea. Behold, Atropis—once City of Light, now City of Shadows. The dead heart of Old Calatan.”

Fersi swept his hand out to indicate the ruined island they approached. Its high black cliffs of jagged stone had drawn perceptibly closer, like a spector of doom that awaited them. Buildings were just discernable from this distance, without exception shattered as though by great blows. Even devastated, it towered above them up into the dark gray clouds. Lightning flashed in the clouds, making them glow with deep green and blue light.

Fersi continued. “Two centuries ago, the City of Light stood upon a tremendous diamond, balanced on the point of a needle, burning with its Narfire flowing up from below the sea. Fantastic, no?”

Ovelia was staring up at Atropis, looking suitably awed while Fersi told his story. Regel did not like the almost possessive way the captain laid his hand on Ovelia’s arm, but she seemed not to mind—or, worse, enjoy—the touch. “But all things that rise must fall,” Regel said.

“Just so,” Fersi said. “The dark magic that broke Calatan fell hard upon her capital, and pulled Atropis from its high perch. Now it is but a rubble strewn ruin, home to nothing living.”

“Nothing?” Ovelia asked, pointing.

Regel looked up a hundred paces to what at first seemed merely a withered gray banner rustling against a hulk of weathered stone. As he watched, though, he realized that it could be a person watching them, tattered cloak caught in the wind at that height. The White Dart floated on, and rocks obscured the watcher, if such it was.

“No one,” Fersi said. A sly grin crossed his features. “It is said shadows peel themselves from the very walls to stalk any foolish enough to enter its forbidden halls.” He smiled wider at Ovelia’s shocked look. Regel merely frowned. “But do not trouble yourself, my lady. We are quite safe. The
Dart
will not make berth there.”

“Why even go near such a horrible place?” Ovelia feigned terror.

“Pirates.” When his simple explanation fell on deaf ears, Fersi smiled wider. “For the last day, we have sailed in waters claimed by Shard and his marauders.”

“Shard?” Ovelia asked.

“A pirate king known for festooning his skyships with the skins of his mutilated victims or—more famously—loading his cannons with their shattered bones. The
Dart
always takes this route, as no flyer would dare pursue us into that mad bastard’s territory.”

“And these pirates are allowed to thrive unchallenged?” Regel asked.

“It is a question of resources, m’lady,” Fersi said to Ovelia, rather than addressing him directly. “Those who want to destroy Shard and his pirates, such as the Ravalis, lack the strength to do it. Those powers who
do
have the strength—like the Children who rule Luether—do not care.”

“And you pay tribute to these pirates?” Regel asked.

Fersi looked irritated to be questioned by a mere servant, but it was clear to him that neither Regel nor Ovelia were folk to be ignored. He shrugged. “Not usually,” he said. “What transpires on the water is far beneath them. They dock their skyships somewhere nearby—some believe a part of Atropis above the clouds, where no one would dare approach them. I always carry coffers of coin to appease Shard should his men notice us. Never fear.” His eyes caught Ovelia’s, and she trembled.

“You are wise, my Lord Captain.” Ovelia took care not to touch him, but Regel could tell much in the way her hips opened to him. “I believe there is nothing else, Norlest. You may go.”

Regel nodded. “My Lady. Captain.”

Fersi dismissed him with a mock salute. Regel was aware of Ovelia watching him as he went below to the common area where his hammock was strung and waiting. The crew no longer offered him the slightest offense, but instead strung their hammocks as far from him as possible.

He would not sleep, though. He had business this night.

* * *

The engine broke down that night, setting the
Dart
adrift on the sea. Regel had lain awake in his hammock perhaps an hour before the engine groaned and whirred to a halt, stranding the
Dart
beneath the shadow of Atropis. Crewmen cursed and made signs to the Old Gods.

In the distraction, Regel slipped away and secreted himself up on the deck behind the main mast. The stars hid behind a thick cloak of black cloud. The silhouette of Atropis towered over the
Dart
, like a protective and forbidding statue. Regel found himself searching the jagged cliffs even at this distance, hoping to catch a glimpse of the figure he’d seen before, but he found no success. Perhaps he had merely imagined it anyway.

While the ship’s mage swore and battered the engine back into function, Regel crouched and waited. He held his carving in one hand and focused upon it, letting his senses extend. Great plumes of greasy smoke wafted from the loudly cranking mage-engine, giving the air a sickly taste. The crew of the ship snored fitfully in their hammocks. All lay still.

Through the smoke, Regel sensed Ovelia emerge from the guest chambers in the forecastle and make her way to the captain’s quarters. She moved with considerable grace, and he might not have seen her if not for his expanded senses.

Whittling in hand, he crept toward the main cabin. His own footfalls, nearly silent in the tense darkness, seemed thunderous to his attuned ears. Other sounds drifted on the breeze—words only he could hear, thanks to a lifetime spent honing his senses. Ovelia’s demure voice. Fersi’s rougher tones, absent the politeness he had feigned before. A meaty slap of fist upon flesh. He had struck her.

Filled with sudden, hot fury, Regel shed all attempt at stealth and marched forward. The blood raging in his veins would not allow subtlety. How had this woman—this murderess he hated with all his heart and soul—done this to him?

As he heard her pleas, he ceased to care. He kicked in Fersi’s door as loudly as he could.

Inside, Ovelia gasped and Fersi pulled away from where they lay together on the bed, cursing and fumbling with his breeches. Ovelia’s wrists were tied to the bed-posts. Regel’s mind flashed back to five years ago, and he hesitated.

In the heartbeat that bought him, the captain lunged across the room for his sword, but Regel stepped in the way and claimed the curved blade himself.

Deprived of his steel, Fersi caught himself and affected an air of nonchalance. He spread his hands in the face of his own sword pointed at him. “What offends, Syr Norlest?”

Regel considered killing Fersi, but then the crew would rise against them. And even if he and Ovelia proved triumphant, killing every last crewman, it would strand them in the middle of the sea. Either way, that would bring their quest to a close. And besides, he and Ovelia were not lovers.

Not this time.

Regel stepped toward Ovelia, blade raised. Her eyes widened and she recoiled when his blade sliced down, but it only parted the bonds securing her to the bed. “Regel, what are you—?” She cut off, having let slip his name.

Regel held Fersi’s sword at the ready. It was inferior to a Vangryur blade, but sufficient to shed blood if it came to that. “We’re going, my lady,” he said over his shoulder.

Bodies clustered outside the door, and the sound of half a dozen casters clicking filled the chamber. The crew had arrived more quickly than Regel had expected.

“Coin or no, you are guests upon my ship,” Fersi said. “Would you insult your host so?”

Regel could slash out Fersi’s throat before they could shoot him down, and from their trembling hands, the crew knew it too. Perhaps he was fast enough to kill several of them.

Ovelia, who had laced up her bodice and pulled a blanket around herself, was staring at him just as intently as the crew. He held her life in his hands as surely as he held his own.

“If you would stop me,” Regel said, “then stop me.”

A shiver passed through the crew, and they looked to Fersi for direction. “Take her,” the captain said, with a dismissive wave. “But do not think I will forget this night. There will be a reckoning.”

Not gently, Regel took Ovelia’s hand and pulled her out into the cold night.

* * *

They returned to the passenger cabin in tense silence, heedless of the crewmen gathered around. Shoulder aching, mind roiling, Ovelia walked barefoot through the night’s chill. She barely felt the cold, but she was glad of Fersi’s blanket, which shielded her from the crew’s speculative looks. She walked proudly with her shoulders back, eyes for no one but Regel. She dared him to look back and dreaded it, both at once.

If he looked at her with those judging eyes, she would scream.

Two crewmen lingered near their chamber, faces startled, but Regel slammed the door on them. Then, quicker than a lunging snake, Regel snapped a knife into his hand, reversed to throw. Ovelia gasped, sure it would be lodged in her throat in a heartbeat, but instead Regel flicked it toward the door. It stabbed into the soft wood jamb, sealing the portal with steel. When Ovelia looked back, he had sat on the bed, staring down at his hands.

“You had no right, Regel.” Ovelia straightened her shoulders. “You had no right to interfere—” He looked up at her, eyes filled with pain and betrayal, and she trailed off.

Old Gods, she felt the way she had five years ago, when...
Gods!

Ovelia heard a moan of frustrated gears from the other end of the ship. The engine had started anew, and the
White Dart
lurched into motion. The inevitability of their quest loomed once more, and Ovelia realized that she couldn’t say what she desperately wanted to say, because then Regel would not help her, and she would fail. It would all be for nothing.

“I’ve coin of my own,” Regel said. “Whatever bargain you made for passage, he can take my gold for the difference and be glad of it.”

He thought... Old Gods, he thought she had whored herself. She wanted to scream in fury at the insult and laugh for joy at her good fortune. If only she had been
whoring
herself, rather than having gone willingly into the bed of a man who would love and abuse her. If she told him the truth—tried to describe the rare thing she had recognized in the captain, and that it had made her want him without wanting to—he would only hate her more. Regel could not understand the hollow inside her—the curse that made her unlike other women. Let him think what he would—it was none of her concern.

Ovelia looked down at her hands. “As you wish.”

Regel still wouldn’t look at her. “If you needed it, you could have asked.”

“And you would have given it?” Ovelia would play his game. What was one more deception? “You would not have, Regel. I know what stands between us. Lies and hate and too much pain.”

Regel offered no words. Instead, he drew his carving knife and the hunk of wood he’d been working since Tar Vangr.

“Whittling,” Ovelia said. “You’d rather do that than talk to me.”

The knife scraped away a sliver of wood and flicked it onto the floor.

“You judge me,” she said after a moment.

“No,” Regel replied.

“You do. You sit there and you judge me.” Ovelia felt more exposed than ever, and pulled the blanket tight over her shoulders. “How dare you—you, who use whores for the secrets they can steal from sleepy patrons—you, who scavenge the lust and wrath of men. You judge me, for doing what I will?”

Regel shrugged. “My students are what they are,” he said. “But this is not what
you
are.”

But he was wrong. She was not a whore—that he had said truly. But she was so much more than he thought. And less.

“And what’s so different about
me
, Regel?” Ovelia challenged, the hairs on her neck and arms rising. “Am I supposed to be pure and beautiful like
she
was—like Lenalin?”

Regel paused in his woodwork, and Ovelia thought he might meet her eye. Ultimately, however, he resumed scraping the knife against the stone.

“Only in your mind, Regel,” Ovelia said. “Only in your
mind
was Lenalin sweet and clean. Only there could you have lived with her, both of you innocent and—”

“I killed a man in my seventh year of life,” said Regel. “Don’t speak to me of innocence.”

“You thought
she
was innocent.”

“More so than either of us, Bloodbreaker.”

The name burned, and she ground her teeth. “Always Lenalin!” she said, choking on the name. “Always her—your perfect, spotless princess. If you had the slightest clue—”