Page 39

Chapter thirty-eight

Aldric

H e should have left already.

He should have left the moment Kyn ensured his guts weren’t about to spill all over the floor. He should have left the moment Kyn stitched closed the hole his kirei had left in his thigh.

And yet he hadn’t.

Because he knew he had nowhere left to go.

Aldric had been sure, beyond any doubt, that the Queen of Elmoria had been the one behind the attempt on his life. Right until he saw an assassin had been sent for her as well.

Which left just one other suspect.

There was only one person in all of Avirel who could have possibly wanted them both dead. His brother.

The King of Drakmor himself.

He should have known. He should have realized there was another plan in play when his brother exiled him to Elmoria. It was so much easier to kill one’s enemies when they were all piled in one place.

Hunching his shoulders against the pain radiating throughout his entire body, Aldric glanced about his bedchamber at his Sons who lingered there. The mood was tense. His men quiet.

In the wee hours of the morning, Aldric had finally called them together for an impromptu meeting so he might tell them all that had happened. The whole truth, at last.

Aside from the part about the witchblade.

He had lost it at some point, that blade. It was still somewhere in the queen’s bedchamber. But no one had yet mentioned it. Perhaps no one had yet found it.

He could only hope that was the case.

Even so, he had stripped the dead man now stuffed beneath the bed within that room of his ripped shirt and burned it in the hearth. It would be easier to pretend the intruder had arrived shirtless than try to explain how a piece of the dead man’s bloodied garment had ended up wrapped about that unholy dagger.

Rakon was the first to pierce the heavy silence shrouding them all when he abruptly asked, “So, what’s the plan, boss?”

From his place sprawled upon the bed, Eisway quipped, “Clearly, we’re just going to wait for them to come behead us.”

Leif shook his head and dug a bit of earwax out of his right ear. “They’ll hang us, boy. Beheadings are only for the fancy folk like our Crow.” The older man squinted at Kyn. “And maybe Kyn. ”

Kyn simply shrugged, looking far calmer than Aldric would have expected in that moment. The younger man jested, “Perhaps they’ll let me choose how I wish to be executed, since I’m a little more noble than the rest of you.”

Aldric stared across the room at his soft-mannered Son—the only one of them who might very well be spared from his fiancée’s wrath, should it come to further violence.

Aloud, though, he reminded his men, “We’re playing this one by ear. Let me do the talking.”

He still needed to figure out what to do. Where to go. If Edmund was out for blood, Drakmor was no longer an option.

Perhaps they could find a ship heading west to the city-states. They could find work there as proper mercenaries.

From his place standing behind the chair Aldric currently occupied, Calix muttered, “We should have left already,” as the doors to the suite they occupied suddenly exploded inward.

A pack of Elmorian guards had come for him at last, with the queen’s Spymaster and none other than Sir Dacre himself leading them. The latter narrowed his eyes when Aldric’s gaze met his. The young knight looked terrible.

But the queen’s Spymaster smiled.

It was Sir Dacre who spoke first, though. He announced, “Her Majesty requests the presence of His Highness in the throne room.”

In no mood to stand and strain the stitches holding him together like a patchwork doll, Aldric asked, “Does she request or does she demand ? ”

He had his answer when the Elmorians all drew their weapons and leveled them at him. The queen’s Spymaster offered a bright smile and a clarification of, “Most assuredly a demand. You can either walk on your own two feet or Sir Dacre can drag you. It’s your choice, Crow.”

Aldric’s lips twitched into a mirthless smile. “We will come,” he declared before his Sons could retaliate and turn the entire interlude into a bloodbath.

But the Spymaster was quick to correct, “Her Majesty stated you are to come alone.”

“Where His Highness goes, so too do we,” Calix snarled without a moment’s hesitation, leaving the queen’s puppet going quite still. The woman ticked a look amongst the thirteen of them.

Aldric could only imagine she was calculating the chances of them all making it out of the guest suite alive should his Sons choose to defend their right to accompany him to the gallows.

After a few more tense moments, the Spymaster finally conceded, “Come along, then. The lot of you.”

There now. We can all die together.

It was that cheerful thought that harried his limping steps through the mostly empty corridors of the palace on that fine morning. His left thigh burned with each step. His torso ached. His cheek smarted.

Keeping his left arm wrapped about his midsection to ensure his innards remained innards, Aldric gritted his teeth and did his best to follow their Elmorian escort .

Most of the court still lay sleeping. The hour was early—so early, dawn’s light had not yet broken through the windows they passed along the way.

Aldric and his Sons marched in silence through the deserted hallways, all the way into the throne room, where they found the queen seated on her dais with three of her advisors already in attendance. Her Lord Chancellor and his wife sat on stools at the queen’s right while the elderly Shepherd of Goldreach stood behind the throne.

The moment they entered, the great double doors slammed shut behind them with a resounding finality that prickled the hairs on the back of Aldric’s neck.

At his side, Calix let loose a low, “I don’t like this.” Those Sons closest to his second-in-command hummed their agreement.

Aldric agreed as well, though he wasn’t going to waste his breath by saying so aloud. They could all plainly see his fiancée had quadrupled her Queensguard since the events of last night.

They were far outnumbered at this point.

As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, the queen suddenly called out across that vast distance, “No blood will be shed so long as you cooperate, Your Highness.”

Her voice sounded thin; it struggled to fill the cavernous space.

He shot her a baleful look, his one good eye narrowing. She looked a good deal paler than usual, as if all the color that had drained from her face last night when she'd swooned into his arms had never quite managed to return .

Unbidden, the memory of her whispering that soft, “Thank you,” up to him as he had pillowed her head against his chest flickered through his mind. She had been warm. And soft.

He swiftly snuffed the memory out.

While last night, his kirei might have been grateful for him interceding on her behalf with the assassin, it was beyond clear that gratitude had finally worn off.

“Is this how you treat those who bleed for you, Your Majesty?” Aldric called back, unable to stop himself from prodding the queen’s soft underbelly. “If so, I’d hate to see how you treat your enemies.”

He was rewarded by the sight of the queen recoiling from the reminder that he had been the one to save her life the night before.

But a fresh verbal volley was ready on her lips. She bit back, “By your own tongue, Crow, you are my enemy,” as their armed Elmorian escort led them all the way to stand just in front of the dais.

As the queen’s Spymaster moved to take up a place behind the throne alongside the Shepherd, the queen called out another command in the way of, “Tell your men to relinquish their weapons.”

“My men are unarmed,” Aldric immediately bluffed—a claim that saw Her Majesty narrowing her eyes.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked him.

He clenched his teeth against a sudden urge to say yes .

“Your men will disarm themselves of any hidden blades they have on their persons or they will be removed from my presence, in irons, if need be. ”

“I’d like to see them try,” his Son Tayn snarled under his breath, awash in all the brash confidence of youth.

Aldric envied the young man.

He remembered a time when he, too, would have thrown caution to the wind and called for the Sons to kill any Queensguard within reach simply to teach his fiancée a lesson she would not soon forget.

But that time was long past now.

“Do as she says,” Aldric commanded, and though a few of his Sons initially hesitated—Calix included—eventually they all pulled free at least one dagger from wherever they had them stashed and tossed them to the floor in an ear-ringing clatter of steel striking stone.

When it was finally his turn, Aldric kept his arm braced against his midsection while he bent forward and fished a dagger out of his right boot. His torso screamed in complaint with that simple movement alone.

Already exhausted, he tossed the blade into the pile as well and straightened, flashing that his fingers were empty.

For now.

He still had one more blade in his left boot and then another spare strapped about his wrist, just in case.

Silence reigned for a few moments more. The queen waited, perhaps to see if any further blades would make an appearance. When they did not, she spoke again to declare, “While I am grateful for your dispatching of the assassin who made an attempt on my life last night, Your Highness, your… auspicious presence in my room does leave some questions which need answering.”

Aldric had expected as much. He had spent the better part of the early morning concocting a fairly plausible story explaining his how and why. It might not stand up to a thorough scrutiny, but…

“And I am requiring you to be Truth-Read while you answer these questions,” his kirei solemnly concluded, stopping his heart with the words.

“What?” Calix gasped.

Rakon called out in his booming voice a complaint of, “Truth-Reading is for murderers and thieves, Your Majesty.”

“Then there should be little protest over the Crow of Drakmor being subjected to it,” the queen’s godmother countered.

Fear was something Aldric had left behind many years ago.

Fear was now a foreign concept to him. What did he have to fear? Ridicule? It was a familiar companion. Death? Death would be a relief most days.

But the thought of being Truth-Read saw, for the first time in a long time, a small trace of that foreign feeling weaving its icy tendrils into Aldric’s heart.

It wasn’t the pain that concerned him. He had known a great deal of pain in his life. Nor was it the thought his lies about what truly happened last night would be so easily laid bare before the queen and her councilors.

It was the knowledge that every secret he held dear—many secrets of which so few knew—could so easily be exposed that saw his pulse quickening. Anything could be revealed during a Truth-Reading, if one only asked the right question.

In his silence, the queen continued. “I recognize the severity of this demand. But know this—I, too, have subjected myself to a Truth-Reading but a short time ago.”

Aldric sucked in a sharp breath and narrowed his one eye in a renewed bout of scrutiny for the woman sitting there upon the throne, looking wan and weak. In Drakmor, it was unheard of for a monarch to be Truth-Read.

His kirei but met his gaze unflinchingly when she added on a quieter note, “I am not asking you to do something I myself have not already endured.”

It was the seriousness of her people’s expressions that confirmed the queen’s claim for him. All four of them looked entirely too solemn and shaken for her to be bluffing now.

And that was what ultimately decided the matter for him. If Seraphina de la Croix could survive a Truth-Reading, then surely so could he.

“Very well,” Aldric agreed. His attention snapped to the elderly Shepherd standing behind the throne. “Truth-Read me.”

A palpable uncertainty rippled all around as twelve sets of eyes turned to face him all at once. Calix’s frown was particularly deep when he hissed, “Are you certain this is a good idea, Your Highness?”

But it was too late. The queen’s holy man already hobbled toward him .

“Perhaps you should sit down, Your Highness,” the Father suggested when he drew close—close enough that Aldric could better appreciate the paper-white cast of the Shepherd’s skin and the dark circles stamped beneath his eyes.

With a wry twist of his lips, Aldric suggested in kind, “Perhaps you should as well.”

Two stools were procured for the occasion, both settled just in front of the dais. Aldric didn’t hesitate before settling himself on the nearest one and holding out his hand for the Shepherd to accept.

Never had he, the Crow of Drakmor, ever been Truth-Read. Rakon was right. Such an interrogation technique was reserved for only the most dangerous of criminals.

But he had seen enough Truth-Readings performed to know just how badly this was going to hurt. He had seen more than one Truth-Reading end in the one being interrogated dropping dead right then and there.

But for this particular Truth-Reading, there was none of the usual ceremony. No fanfare. No warning. The Shepherd of Goldreach simply sat across from him, drew in a deep breath, and seized his hand.

The moment their fingers connected, an almost unbearable heat sizzled its way through Aldric’s fingers and seared his soul. The brilliance of its light blinded him. No darkness could exist beneath that scorching blaze .

It peeled away every barrier he had ever built within himself in one merciless sweep, leaving him raw and exposed before the Lord on High’s judgment.

Aldric bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. He tasted blood as he swallowed the scream clawing at his throat.

“What is your name?” the queen asked as if from far away, though the question repeated itself tenfold within his mind. It echoed—questing, searching.

Name, name, name, name.

The answer came easily to his lips.

“Aldric Hargrave,” he gasped, shuddering from the effort of keeping himself from flying into a million pieces. The full force of the Lord’s light continued to flow through him, burning him bit by bit. His bones ached. His innards screamed.

“And are you the firstborn son of King Warwick II of Drakmor?” the queen asked next.

Another easy answer.

“Yes,” Aldric bit out around the taste of his own blood.

“And are you the rightful King of Drakmor?”

The sheer absurdity of that question actually lured a strangled laugh from Aldric’s throat. His fingers trembled within the holy man’s slick grip. The Shepherd was sweating.

Or perhaps he was the one sweating.

Forcing his one good eye open, Aldric tried to level a look at his bride. But he could not see her through the blaze of that holy fire .

Baring his teeth, he half screamed, half snarled a heated, “ Yes ,” in reply to her. That single word, pulled from the very depths of his heart, echoed throughout the throne room.

Yes, he was the first-born. He was his father’s heir.

He was the rightful king.

Clearly satisfied by whatever madness had driven her down that particular line of questioning, the queen switched tactics when she next asked him, “Did you know the assassin who attacked me last night?”

Another easy answer.

“No,” Aldric howled. He rocked upon his stool now with the effort of keeping himself from burning alive from the inside out.

But there was no mercy. There was no reprieve.

The heat continued scorching its way through him.

“Why did you come to my room, then?”

The conflagration roaring away within him flared even more brightly. His back arched as he fought against it. It lapped at the lie that had immediately sprung to the forefront of his mind. It devoured the words with all the hunger of a raging wildfire. Aldric tasted more blood within his mouth as he fought against the urge to scream.

He failed.

“Because an assassin came to my room as well,” Aldric finally shouted—a half-truth. The rest of it lingered within him, fighting to be free.

No . She didn’t need to know the whole of it.

He couldn’t tell her the whole of it .

Now it was the Spymaster’s turn to ask a question. The Lothmeeran woman demanded to know, “Someone tried to assassinate you as well last night?”

Aldric snarled a simple, “Yes.”

“How did you enter Her Majesty’s room?” The weasel of a Spymaster again.

“Through the balcony.”

“And the balcony doors were unlatched when you arrived?”

The weasel was full of questions.

“Yes ,” Aldric howled again. He dug his fingers into the Shepherd’s hand to keep himself from succumbing to the fire scorching him from the inside out.

“Why were you in Her Majesty’s room?” This question came from the Lord Chancellor.

A difficult answer. Aldric rocked in place again and tried to dredge up every lie he had concocted earlier that morning. But all of them burned to ash within his mind, consumed by the light blazing there.

He had nothing. No lie. No half-truth, even.

The truth ripped forth from his throat, unbidden, condemning him before them all when he screamed, “Because I came to kill her.”

He had expected the Truth-Reading to end right there. He had expected the queen to call her guards to take him into custody.

Treason .

He had just confessed to treason to the Queen of Elmoria herself .

But there was no blade pressed to his back. His agony did not abate.

The light continued blazing through him, leaving him shaking with the force of it, as the queen herself asked another question. “And yet you risked your life to save mine?”

“Yes.” That word ripped from him with such force he nearly swayed right off of his stool.

“Why?” That question of hers echoed throughout his entire body, questing, seeking.

Why, why, why, why, why.

But nothing rose to answer that all-important question. He didn’t know.

He didn’t know.

“I don’t know,” Aldric roared, unable to resist the sheer heat of the Truth-Reading now. He was going to die. He was going to die right then and there from the agony of it all.

But still, the queen was not finished with him. She called out over the sound of his screams a question of, “And were you stabbed by the witchblade last night?”

The witchblade . They knew.

But they didn’t seem to know he had been the one carrying it. It was me , a part of him wanted to scream. But that wasn’t the question asked. He only had to speak the truths demanded of him.

“No,” Aldric shouted instead, shaking yet again.

Never had he ever begged for anything—not since the day he begged his father not to cast him into exile—but he was on the verge of begging then .

Please. Please stop. Those traitorous words never left his lips, though.

Blessedly, they didn’t have to.

The Shepherd gasped out a weak, “He speaks…the truth…Your Majesty…” and a mere moment later, the heat originating from the Father’s grasp abated, leaving Aldric awash in a blissful emptiness.

His entire soul felt scorched and raw. But he was alive.

He was alive .

Bracing his hands against his knees, Aldric doubled over and gasped for air. Sweat dripped from his brow. His entire body shook with the effort of remaining upright.

And then he retched.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he had eaten, but clearly he had eaten something , given the bits of food swimming through the puddle of bile now coating the floor.

Even stained as it was, that marble beneath his feet looked so terribly cool and inviting. For a moment, he considered letting himself go. He could collapse there in a heap and just bask in the cold expanse of that fine stone.

But then he remembered who he was.

He was Aldric Hargrave , the rightful heir of King Warwick II. The Bane of the Kunishi. The Crow of Drakmor.

And he had just been tortured in front of a room full of witnesses for the amusement of that woman.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was on his feet. He spat a final mouthful of blood and bile right there on his kirei’s pretty marble floor before turning and stalking toward the dais on still shaking legs. His left thigh burned with every step—a lovely reminder of how she had stabbed him.

A cry of alarm went up from the closest Queensguard when he took that first step. The Elmorians moved in on him, blades still drawn.

For whatever reason, the queen held up a hand to stay their blades.

And Aldric stalked on past.

He climbed the stairs in a slow procession, his one eye fixed on Seraphina’s gray. He focused all his energy on each step he took, hoping all the while he didn’t crumple and fall flat on his face now.

He had other hopes as well.

He hoped she could see the malice burning within his gaze—a malice burning for her and her alone. Just as he hoped she could taste how much he loathed her in that moment.

He didn’t stop in his approach until he reached her and her lofty perch. He didn’t stop until his hands jolted forward and gripped the arms of her throne.

That hold helped to keep him upright when he tilted his face toward hers and growled, “Are you satisfied now?”

“Yes,” the queen whispered back, her breath caressing against his face with that single word. After a brief pause, the woman informed him, apropos of nothing, “Arathian ships have landed on our coast. The enemy is now raiding our border with impunity.”

Our ? Aldric peeled his lips back in an open sneer. “That sounds like a you problem, Your Majesty. ”

He was aware of the queen’s godparents glaring daggers at him in that moment. He was aware of her lanky weasel, too, standing close just behind the throne.

Given her stance, the Spymaster clearly had a blade secreted on her person, which she was on the verge of drawing.

But Aldric was beyond caring at that point. Let the weasel stab him. It would just add a bit of further excitement to his already riveting morning.

The queen seemed to likewise be ignoring her councilors, given how her eyes remained fully hooked upon him. Arching an eyebrow at his assertion, she softly countered, “It is our problem, Your Highness, given the binding contract between us.”

The laugh that escaped his lips bordered on the hysterical.

And it seemed her Lord Chancellor shared that borderline hysteria, given how the older man shrilly voiced, “You can’t be serious, Your Majesty. This man just admitted he wanted to kill you last night.”

“I did,” Aldric openly agreed once his laughter had subsided. He was all too happy to remind the queen of that little fact.

Tightening his grip on the arms of her throne, he leaned in just that much more and quietly imparted, “I did very much want to kill you last night.”

He hadn’t, though. Not truly.

But she didn’t need to know that. The question that had been asked was why he had entered her room. And he had entered to kill her.

No one had bothered asking how he had felt about it all .

Her Majesty thinned her lips and jutted her chin forward in that obnoxious way of hers when she pointed out with the utmost of blasé attitudes, “And yet you took a dagger for me.”

Now it was Aldric’s turn to thin his lips. She wasn’t wrong.

“And besides,” the queen continued, “I stabbed you first, so I suppose we’re even in wanting the other dead.”

She wasn’t wrong about that either.

“Get to your point,” Aldric demanded on a low hiss.

“I know why you saved my life last night,” his kirei insisted.

Which certainly made one of them.

“I finally understand now,” she whispered. “Why you have yet to hurt me. Why you have been so desperate to marry.”

Those final words slammed into his skull, bringing with them a sudden realization. He didn’t have to marry her anymore. If Edmund wanted him dead, what was the point in it all? The false wedding? The political games?

He could simply…leave.

And yet he continued lingering there for the moment, listening to the queen when she whispered, “It’s because your ambition outweighs your bloodlust. In your mind, you were always meant to be a king.”

Leaning forward a little as if she was imparting some great secret to him, she concluded on another hushed breath, “Which means you need me alive, so I might make you a king.”

The very idea he needed this woman for anything at all left a bitter taste in his mouth. Beyond that, Aldric wanted to argue against her points .

Ambition?

If he was an ambitious man, he would have usurped his brother long ago. He would have marched straight into Falwood and shoved his glaive straight through Edmund’s face.

But he hadn’t. He should have, but he hadn’t.

Who would have stood with him during such a coup? He didn’t possess Seraphina’s natural charisma. He hadn’t been blessed with Edmund’s kingly appearance.

“Therefore—” His kirei was talking again, and he pulled himself back into the present moment, to focus on her words. He stared at her mouth as she whispered, “You will fight on Elmoria’s behalf now. You will ride south to Arlund and drive the Arathian horde from our borders, and then…”

She lifted her chin again, challenging him. “…I will give you what you want. What you truly want. I will make you king.”

His traitorous heart skipped a beat when the vexing creature clarified, “The King of Drakmor.”