Page 13 of Among the Burning Flowers (The Roots of Chaos #3)

CáRSCARO

DRACONIC KINGDOM OF YSCALIN

CE 1004

Of course, the idea had occurred to her, in the darkest hours of night.

That her father had executed his queen consort in secret, then made up a lie to cover her death.

King Jantar would likely have declared war on Yscalin if he learned that his sister had been harmed with intent.

I did it to protect you.

Words that made no sense, that never had.

could think of reasons why Sahar might have taken her own life – to spare herself the indignity of exile and disgrace – but not how it would have protected her.

How could the sudden loss of a mother ever aid her child?

So for years, the idea had seeped into her, like poison taken by the drop.

That her father was a murderer, a fiend.

But she could not flee the man who had sired her, so she had never dared to look her idea in the face.

Instead, she had turned very still, trying not to be noticed.

For surely a man who killed his own queen could also kill his own daughter.

Now she could be still no longer. For the first time in a decade, the Knight of Courage, her patron, had overtaken her body, driving out the fear that had kept her silent for so long.

did not go to Fynch. Instead, she marched up the stairs to the Royal Apartments. Four of the Vardya guarded the doors, all wearing cloths over their noses and mouths.

‘Let me through,’ said.

‘His Majesty is not to be disturbed, Your—’

‘I am the Donmata of Yscalin. I can go where I please in my ancestors’ halls.’

Something about her manner must have reminded them of the king, for both of them looked taken aback. She countered their gazes without blinking, turning the force of her eyes on them all.

‘Your Radiance,’ one said, ‘His Majesty is … indisposed.’

‘I am well aware.’

‘Then take this, at least.’

She offered a handkerchief, which she accepted before sweeping past them.

King Sigoso lay on his canopy bed. The room smelled of bonfires and unwashed skin. The Royal Physician lurked in the corner, wearing a beaked mask with glass eyeholes, the sort that kept out the pestilence.

‘Leave us,’ said to her.

‘Donmata, you should not be here.’

‘I told you to leave us.’

The Royal Physician obeyed her without further protest. King Sigoso did not move, his grey eyes fixed on the ceiling. His face was blank and slack.

‘I have long suspected that you murdered my mother,’ said, very softly. ‘Now I believe I know why.’ She held up the vial in a gloved hand. ‘This is basilisk venom. Is it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you somehow used it to kill Queen Rosarian.’

‘I knew your mind was sharper than you wanted me to see. You truly are my daughter, though you look so much like Sahar.’

stiffened. She had not expected her father to admit to murder at all, let alone do it so quickly.

Perhaps the Draconic plague was rotting his wits, breaking down his judgement and inhibitions. He likely had a fever. And yet, for the first time in her life, thought she was seeing his true self. The underpainting of the man, leaking from beneath the royal portrait.

‘Come, then, Father. Confess it all,’ she said. ‘It must have been hard to keep it a secret. Tell me how you did it.’

‘A gown made of Eastern watersilk, which resists the corrosive nature of basilisk venom – as does Northern diamond glass, the substance used to make the vial. All so very expensive.’

He delivered all this – the specifics of murder – in a cold and impassive voice, not so different to the one he always used to address her. Her body prickled with chills.

‘How did you acquire the venom?’ she asked, forcing herself to sound calm.

‘A merchant prince in Samana,’ her father said, ‘who purchased it, I believe, from a culler.’

‘You execute cullers.’ She chanced another step towards his bed, moved by her wrath. ‘You have accused so many of heresy and wrongdoing, all while you have wallowed in hypocrisy for years. You have failed to adhere to the Six Virtues. Were you ever true to the Saint?’

‘The truest of all.’

‘You barefaced liar.’

‘I have no need to lie to you, daughter. The Saint I loved so dearly has abandoned me.’

‘You never loved the Saint. You only ever loved yourself.’

‘I was his most devoted servant, willing to do what others would not. See how he rewards me?’ He licked his cracked and bloody lips. ‘The lining of the gown was impregnated with the venom. My Inysh ally could touch it, to conceal it in the Privy Wardrobe, but once it was on Rosarian … well, there was no getting it off. She burned like a heretic.’

His faint smile twisted her stomach. She saw the wood again, the venom eating straight through it.

‘This ally. The Cupbearer,’ she said. ‘Who in Inys would kill a descendant of the Saint?’

‘Someone who saw Rosarian for the shameless harlot she was.’

‘You dare name another queen an adulteress?’

‘This one spurned a king for bedsport with lordlings and commoners. Even pirates knew her well.’

‘Enough with these baseless accusations. Did you seek revenge on her because she spurned your suit?’ demanded. ‘Saint on high, what did I do to deserve such a father?’

Her eyes were the proof, the eternal reminder, that she had been reared with no will of her own. To be no one while he still lived. His blood was in her veins, and she could not burn it away.

‘Rosarian had lost the right to represent the Saint on earth. She contravened all of the Six Virtues,’ her father said, unmoved by her outburst, ‘but most of all, she indulged in carnal lust and conceit, defiling his house. Even a holy bloodline can be fouled by vice and bastardry.’

‘Not hers. Her blood chains the Nameless One.’

‘Rosarian had given birth. The next link in the chain was forged. What was her purpose after that?’

The words struck like a hammer to her chest, driving the breath from her.

‘Did you think the same of my mother?’ she forced out. ‘Once she had given you an heir, was her life worth nothing to you, Father? Or less still, because she was not a Berethnet?’

‘Sahar was a Southern spy, sent to my court to fill it with heresy.’

‘You say this only because she found the same evidence I did. And drew the same conclusions.’

‘She did,’ King Sigoso said. ‘Some might say I was foolish to keep the documents, but they were the proof of my love for the Saint. And I liked to imagine Rosarian dying.’

He had slashed her portrait long before Fyredel woke.

‘Sahar believed that if I could kill a queen in Inys, I might also harm my own flesh and blood,’ he said. ‘She always was unable to control herself. A heathen to the end.’ He sat up, so she could see that his eyes were grey, without the spark. ‘Aryete Feyalda informed me that your mother was planning to leave, though she did not know why. I assumed Sahar had simply grown tired of the West … but I could not let her abscond with the Donmata of Yscalin.’

, hurry, we must leave.

‘After I had Sahar imprisoned, she pleaded to speak to me, to beg for mercy and forgiveness. I was fool enough to let her back into my bedchamber. I had not realised what she knew.’

watched him, heart thudding. She was there again, in the dark, glimpsing the red fire.

‘And then, in her last act,’ King Sigoso said, ‘my bride took a knife she had concealed in her sleeve, and she ensured that you would be my sole heir of the body. She brought death on herself.’

‘You killed her. With your own hands.’

‘With my own hands.’

No block in a private chamber. No rope.

A brutal, human fight between a king and queen.

‘Why have you kept me caged for ten years?’ asked, close to losing her grip altogether. ‘I knew nothing of this.’

‘You guessed.’

‘I did not want to believe my own father was capable of murder.’

‘But your Ersyri uncle always has. Jantar threatened to abduct you to Rauca,’ he said.

‘He fears for your life, as well he might. No matter what your mother intended, she did not protect you. You are no Berethnet queen, Vetalda. The world will not end if you die.’

‘That is true,’ conceded, ‘but you will die first of the two of us, Father. I am not the puppet here.

And if I survive Fyredel, as you will not – if I remain – then Yscalin will be mine to remake.

I will let the world know what you did to Rosarian.

I will do to your image exactly what you did to hers. I will raise my mother back to glory, and bury your legacy in the dust.’

King Sigoso did not speak again. She turned away and left him to decay in his own company.

****

The Vaulted Gallery housed the foreign ambassadors.

was slow to reach it, her mind seeming to drift in her wake.

She had never believed that anything could frighten her more than Fyredel, but the evil in the mountains paled in comparison to the evil in her own home.

Fynch received in his apartments. As Dowager Prince of Inys, his were the finest quarters, with nine windows in the main chamber and a door leading to a roofed balcony.

‘I have seen,’ told him.

He lowered himself on to a settle, suddenly looking his age.

‘When Fyredel called your father,’ he said, ‘I sensed it was the first and last opportunity I would ever have to get inside his cabinet – the one he built for secret and sensitive documents. That is where he kept the evidence. And where the poisoned gown was made.’

‘Who told you about it?’

‘His locksmith, who is faithful to the Saint above her king. She also showed me the water passages.’

‘My lord?’

‘The copper pipes that bring hot water run in narrow tunnels behind the walls. There are entry points for plumbers, so repairs might be made if the pipes leak or rupture. I have the key to those entry points. I doubt that your father knows, but one of them is in his bedchamber.’

A lifetime spent in this suffocating tower, and somehow, still did not know it.

‘These passages,’ she said. ‘Will you show them to me?’

‘Yes.’ His gaze became distant. ‘I was not there when Rosarian died, but our child was. I am still not sure how Sabran survived it. There was … almost nothing left of her mother to bury.’

thought of Sabran, a consummate queen, never showing weakness. All while she held that memory within her.

‘I once believed my father was faithful to the Saint,’ said. ‘I do not know how he justified this.’

‘Oh, I think Sigoso was devout, but I have long suspected him of harbouring a grudge against Rosarian for rejecting his suit. It is why I asked Sabran to make me her ambassador.’

‘When did my father court Rosarian?’

‘About five years before you were born, when Rose was still a princess. But the late Queen Jillian had wanted her to marry me. Rose respected her last wish.’ He clasped his liver-spotted hands. ‘During my inquiry, I discovered that your father once had ambitious plans for this kingdom. He hoped that, by siring a Berethnet with Vetalda blood, he could eventually move the seat of Virtudom to Yscalin. Rose inadvertently thwarted those plans. Later, it seems this Cupbearer convinced him that she was adulterous. In his mind, that allowed him to mete out punishment. By then, she had an heir. Her untimely death would not release the Nameless One.’

‘It frightens me that our faith can be twisted so.’

‘As all faiths can in the wrong hands.’

‘Yes.’ She watched his face. ‘Who is this Cupbearer?’

‘I still do not know.’

‘My lady mother came upon the evidence. She realised my father was behind it,’ said. Fynch looked at her. ‘She tried to flee to Rauca, to protect us both from his madness. He killed her and tarnished her legacy, but she dealt him justice first, Your Grace.’

‘How?’

‘She ensured that I will be his only heir.’

‘You mean that she … damaged him?’

nodded once. Fynch released his breath.

‘I always did wonder why your father never took another bride,’ he said. ‘Queen Sahar was a brave woman. I am sorry for her death, but I am not surprised to learn her last act was in your defence. A dove is a bird of peace, in the main, but it will protect its young to the last.’

Her vision blurred. She pressed a hand to her partlet, where the pendant was concealed.

‘I still do not quite understand why he married her,’ she admitted. ‘There was no love between them.’

‘To spite Rosarian, I imagine. She wounded his pride, so he forged an alliance with a country that did not acknowledge her divine authority. Clearly it was not enough to sate him in the end.’ Fynch rubbed his face. ‘Still, I do believe that fear of discovery – or the wrath of the Saint – has gnawed your father ever since. For years, he could not face my daughter. He avoided me. He knows that if King Jantar learned the truth, he would declare war on Yscalin.’

‘My father believed he would steal me away. It is absurd,’ said bitterly. ‘Without proof of murder, why would King Jantar go so far to save a niece he never met?’

‘Surely you know.’ When she frowned, Fynch did the same. ‘Your Radiance, King Jantar and Queen Saiyma do not yet have a child. It has been speculated that they never will. Unless they do, you are heir presumptive to the Ersyr.’ She stared at him. ‘I suspect King Sigoso has kept you close as surety, so your uncle can never move against him, nor take you to Rauca.’

hardly knew how to digest the revelation. She had never learned the politics of the Ersyri court, but not once had the idea occurred to her that she could be next in line to the throne.

‘No doubt,’ Fynch said, ‘it also ensures that King Sigoso shapes you in a way he likes.’

‘I am not clay to be moulded, my lord.’

‘No, indeed.’ Fynch sighed. ‘Sabran knows what I suspected. As more and more Yscals succumb to despair – as they submit to the wyrms, knowing they will die if they do not – I fear that Virtudom will lose faith in this country. My daughter will have to declare holy war.’

‘I mean to prevent that.’

‘I recall that the Knight of Courage is your patron. If anyone can save Yscalin, I believe it is you.’

could feel the press of her patron brooch, hidden in the lining of her gown. Shaped like a shield, for courage was not only necessary for the clash of blades. It was also for defending those with no defences of their own.