Page 22 of A King’s Trust (Heart-Mage Trilogy #1)

22

A LEASH, A CROWN, AND SIGNET RINGS

T he capital was so deeply surrounded by soldiers, it looked to be under siege. Beau tapped his fingers on the saddle horn, impatient as Lianna argued with Courdur’s representative.

“Come on,” he muttered, “all I want is to see my wife.” This was, apparently, a great deal to ask for, if the representative’s shocked face was anything to go off of.

The green glow of his veins had steadily drained down toward his fingers, ticking like a countdown for the entire march. All that was left was an awful verdant cast to his fingertips. He thought it meant Elias was close, which made his impatience even worse.

When Lianna rode back, storm clouds in her face, Beau braced himself for the news.

“He said you’re welcome to come to the palace, where Vic will await you with all the other gathered nobles in the throne room,” she said. “I suspect he thinks you’ve come to surrender, now that you’ve seen his forces.”

Beau nodded. Their own force was barely a quarter of what Courdur held the city with— if Courdur commanded them. With no way to communicate with Penny beyond bursts of emotions, Beau couldn’t ask her how the conversations with the other nobles had gone. He didn’t know if he could expect a single one of Courdur’s men to turn.

Beau’s fingertips tingled with the soul-chilling magic. Tugging off his riding glove, he eyed them: barely even a hint of green to them, and the space between his first and second knuckles glowed brilliantly gold. He pulled his glove back on and clicked his tongue at Tempest, riding not toward the city, but past his men toward the treeline, scanning the space between trunks for movement. A breeze kicked up, cooling the morning and tossing the branches with gentle shushes. The birds were strangely silent; in fact, he could hear nothing of nature over the clang and chatter of the soldiers.

There —

Beau reined up hard, making Tempest grunt.

What emerged from between the trees was not Elias. Half-staggering, half-floating, a noxious black-green shadow in the barest shape of a man moved steadily toward Beau, two piercing green dots for eyes fixed on him. Undergrowth curled away from it, and where it touched the trees, sizzling pale patches of ash were left.

As it drew closer, Beau could see the pieces and parts of real flesh, barely bound together by a bilious torrent of magic. Twenty feet away, it filled the air with such horrific, nauseating pressure that he had to fight Tempest to keep her from fleeing. She screamed and kicked anyway, all but bucking him off in her terror.

Beau felt the last of the green magic trickle away. In a thousand voices, the creature opened its mouth and spoke. “You called.”

“Elias?”

“You are not yet king.”

The magic in the air was ravenous. It grasped at Beau, at Tempest, the trees beyond. The sky grew darker.

“No, Courdur is sitting on my throne.” Beau pointed toward the palace, and the revenant’s eyes followed his finger. “We’re here to take it from him. Will you…help me?” He had to choke the words out. He didn’t want this thing’s help. He wanted Elias .

“It is my business. There is little time. This body is broken beyond the limits of magic.”

Beau hesitated, then slid off Tempest’s back and took a step toward the revenant. Tempest yanked her reins out of his hands and backed away, squealing and blowing, eyes rolling. She was too well-trained to bolt, but for every step Beau went closer to the shadow creature, she took several away.

“I can help you with that,” he said, holding a calming hand out. “I have a different kind of magic. Something to help you help me. Help you finish your business.”

“This body is broken beyond the limits of magic,” it repeated.

Beau shook his head, edging closer. The Tradelord magic fog crushed his chest, brought bile up his throat, made his eyes burn. “No, it isn’t. I can fix it. Let me…” He reached into the densest part of the deep green cloud, his arm lighting up with stinging cold, buzzing like a hornet. His fingers traced the edge of the amulet.

The revenant slammed its fist into the center of his chest, knocking him back and off his feet. Beau gasped and rolled, clutching at his breastbone. It felt burned, broken—but his skin was whole and unmarked.

“Please,” he choked out, “just let me—”

“The bargain is almost complete. It is time.” The revenant walked in hideous, staggering, too-fast movements past Beau.

Standing, the king dropped his voice to command the creature. “Stop.” It came out too hoarse; it was so hard to breathe. He tried again. “Elias, stop. Let me fix you.”

The words shuddered through the creature, bursts of green and blood-red energy sparking in it. It turned and looked over its shoulder at Beau, and one hazel eye showed through the darkness. Its mouth worked, a shriek pouring out. And then Elias’ voice, distorted and strained, said, “Let’s go get your crown, Highness.”

The revenant staggered on toward the palace, its slumping, amorphous form growing in size with each step. Gasps and screams rose from the soldiers, who broke formation to scurry out of the revenant’s path.

It ignored the swordsmen, walking through the clear corridor its malevolent presence carved for it. Beau followed as fast as his hip, still twinging from the half-healed slices, would carry him. He caught Tempest’s reins and led her behind him, ignoring the way she tossed her head and shied to be free. Soldiers who had unsheathed blades or lifted crossbows hesitated as the creature neared, then simply broke and ran.

The revenant reached the front doors, raised its hands, and smashed through them with a screech of magic that sent a shockwave back through the fighters. Guards poured out, ready for an attack but not ready for the thing that stood before them, billowing choking clouds of dark magic. They fell in pieces, most too quickly even for screams.

Chaos roiled behind, Beau, too, but he kept his eyes fixed on the revenant. He had to command it. If it carved its way through the palace, through the throne room, it might kill Penny. It would certainly wipe out most of the peerage. I brought him here. I have to control him.

But the revenant moved fast, faster than the king could travel. Gut churning, Beau darted into the hallway, following the trail of bodies. Distantly, he heard screaming as more guards died, and the pulsing infrasound of the magic driving Elias forward. Slipping in puddles of viscera, the king sprinted toward the throne room.

The creature’s repulsion of his attempt to heal Elias had torn open the wound in his shoulder. It bled heavily, and his fingers felt weak, less responsive than before. To the blood soaking into his shirt, he whispered, “Wait for me, Elias. Wait .”

This flash of magic, more expected and less dramatic, was nonetheless excruciating as it sizzled, cold, across his chest and stabbed ice into the cut in his shoulder. He ran faster, throwing himself against the double doors of the throne room and flinging them open. Beau fought to recover his footing.

He couldn’t stumble in like he was dragged; in a room full of nobles, he needed to be visibly in control of the magic he’d brought in. He needed to be kingly.

Gold magic burned through the tear in his sleeve at the shoulder, brighter and hotter with each effort to walk slowly, steadily. He managed a brisk but regal entrance, barely taking in the crowded room before his eyes went to Elias.

Nobles were crammed against the walls, lords holding swords toward the massive, hulking creature in the middle while the ladies crouched behind them or held jeweled knives in white-knuckled fists. Archers in the towering window niches above fired a constant rain of arrows on the revenant, which writhed and screamed but took no action, held about the neck as it was by a leash that Beau could see, now, originated from him.

The screams, to Beau’s horror, were in Elias’s voice.

Where is Penny? There—she was using the chaos to edge around the room, making her way toward Beau. As Beau found her, an arrow meant for the revenant ricocheted in her direction, and she narrowly dodged. “Elias, take out the archers. Only the archers.”

A cloud of death erupted up from the mosaic tiles of the throne room, spinning and tearing. Its path through the soldiers summoned a dark rainstorm, blood spattering down on the nobles below, who shrieked and cowered. Then Elias was stalking back toward Beau, dead archers dangling from windows in pieces and parts.

“I deeply regret what you’ve brought our kingdom to, Lord Courdur,” Beau shouted, spotting the man crouching behind a small knot of guards at the far end of the room. He wore Beau’s father’s crown— his crown. “You’ve been given everything, more than any noble in this room, and still you send men to die to scrape and claw more power for yourself. You foul, disgraceful toad of a man, pissing on my father’s grave and telling every peer of the realm it’s rain.” Beau turned his attention to the nobles, who were deathly still.

“Courdur lied to you. The rightful king lives, and Victoire Penamour chose me. My wife. My queen.” Penny slid in next to him, threading her fingers through his and staring the rest of the peerage down alongside him. “I would’ve preferred to put on my crown as my father intended, with no blood spilled, but make no mistake—by right of my blood and the spilling of my foes’, I’ll hold what’s mine. I protect Granvallée from its enemies, inside and out.”

Still, no one moved. They watched him and they watched the revenant and they trembled with horror and anticipation. Courdur did not answer; he licked his lips nervously, eyes darting around the room, weighing reactions.

Beau’s eyes did not dart, but the same nervousness filled him. What more could he do? Did he need to unleash Elias to bring these people around?

Penny nudged him through the ring, and Beau realized she hadn’t been holding his hand—she’d been handing him several small, heavy metal somethings . Beau cupped them in his fingers as he pulled away. Signet rings.

Beau lifted the first, which bore an eagle in flight over a mountain peak, the symbol of the Abadies, then held it out for the room to see. “The Abadies—” He began, and Lord Abadie swallowed hard before raising his voice.

“We stand with the rightful king,” he said.

The second ring, with its sunburst and three stars, prompted Lord Tivelyn to say, “The Tivelyns stand with the rightful king.”

The lion head of the Robens drew a proud smile from Lady Roben: “The Robens stand with the rightful king.”

A pair of ravens facing each other for Lord Blanchet, Lady Roben’s fiancé. “The Blanchets stand with the rightful king.”

Lord Gandinne, with his pretty dimple and a ferocious look at the room, stepped forward with no prompting from a signet and said, “The Gandinnes stand with the rightful king. He stood with Durebord when Lord Courdur would’ve starved us out.”

“Poulinpont stands with the rightful king,” Lady Ovanne said, nodding to Beau, and Beau thanked every star in the heavens he’d made his father rehear her proposal in court after digging for the funding amidst the mess Char had made.

“And of course,” Penny said, lifting her own signet ring and placing it in Beau’s palm. “I stand with the rightful king.”

Elias shuddered, and despite the smoking leash that tied him to Beau, he began to advance on Courdur. Beau stepped with him a half-second later as if advancing had been his intent, and the crowd parted before them.

“I know you believed those Houses sworn to you. But they lied. Those forces outside are mine , not yours,” Beau said, pouring rage into it, and something pulsed from him, a wave of force that passed through the nobles and rattled Courdur’s teeth. “Did you truly think to stand against the royal line of Granvallée, Courdur? Do you have any idea the magic at my disposal?”

Courdur gritted his teeth, fear and fury battling for control of his limbs. But to Beau’s surprise, it was Lord Macabrie who stepped into Elias’s path. He stared at Beau for a moment, ignoring the revenant with a truly heroic show of control.

Then he bent his head, his body, his knee—he knelt. “The Macabries stand with the rightful king.” When his eyes flicked back up to Beau’s as he stood, the man’s face said he expected Beau to remember that he’d spoken without being approached, without being asked. “My family and I will leave you to dispense your justice, if we may?” It was barely a request.

Beau nodded, glad to have people leave this charnel pit.

The Macabries fled, and as if a dam had broken, other nobles knelt, muttering their family names and their loyalty to him. They evaporated, slowly at first, then faster, until most were simply running from the room.

Elias continued his menacing march toward the crowned usurper, moving as if slogging through waist-deep water. Magic-shrouded pieces sloughed off onto the floor as the revenant continued forward, and Beau realized with a horrific jolt that Elias was coming apart at the seams, that he might not even make it to the end of the hall. The tug-of-war between his purpose and Beau’s commands was too much for his will.

“If you wish to swear to me,” Beau called loudly, “return to the throne room tomorrow. For now, I want the usurper alone with the weight of my displeasure.”

The remaining nobles bolted, trailed by guards. No one wanted to be in the same room as the visibly unraveling magic creature boiling its way toward Courdur.

Lord Courdur’s face paled from the violet of fury to merely red, and then to pink. By the time his heels hit the wall behind him and his head thunked into it a half-second later, he’d gone waxen-grey. “Beauregard,” he said, licking his lips, “I was made to understand you had no interest in the throne. Had I realized—”

“What did you call me?” Beau tilted his head to the side, genuinely stunned that the man could watch his roomful of supporters go up in smoke, face down a Maurilel revenant, and still speak to Beau as if he were a child interrupting the adults’ conversation. He snatched the crown off Courdur’s head. “ Try again .”

Falteringly, as if it cost him dearly, Lord Courdur said, “Your…Majesty. Forgive me.”

Beau looked into the man’s terrified, unrepentant eyes. Maybe the Tradelords’ magic had burned away his compassion. Maybe he’d simply found his own well of hate, with the memory of Maisie’s empty eyes and Nicky’s body and the rest of Leau’s dead fresh in his mind. Whatever it was, he could summon no mercy for this man.

“No, I don’t think I will. Elias?”

The revenant did not kill Lord Courdur. It shredded him.

Beau stepped hastily back out of the spray of gore, stomach churning and new fear lighting up his head. This was it—the deal was done. The enemies were dead and the throne lay clear before him. If he didn’t act now, Elias’s soul was gone forever.

Dropping the crown, Beau pulled the Orb of Tethering from his pocket. With his other hand, he reached blindly into the whirl wind of collapsing magic. His fingers found the cold, awful necklace. It scorched his flesh away, drove slivers of ice under his nails, carved chill into his bones, but he held on.

Howling with the effort, he peeled the amulet away from what was left of Elias’s chest. It sucked at the flesh, pulling an all-too-human cry from what had been Elias’s mouth. Where it had lain, Beau slammed the Orb against El’s breastbone.

It shattered.

From somewhere deep in his chest, Beau was wrenched out of his body and into hell.