Page 21 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

ELRIC

K ai and Markus come to see them off at the docks.

Damon asks Markus one more time to come with them. He seems to have grown close to his disgraced uncle in the three nights they have spent on Luxoria.

But Markus shakes his head. “I have long turned my back on Azuria,” he says. “But when you find all you want there, perhaps you would consider returning here. I have oft thought that with more who were willing, this place could be a paradise.”

Elric cannot blame Markus for wanting to stay.

He would much rather remain on Luxoria himself with its sticky heat and easy way of life.

And lack of respect for the laws of Zai.

Elric has no great desire to return to Attar.

Despite the scarcity of peach wine and silk shirts on Luxoria.

But he does not think his opinion would count for much.

And he knows well that Lukas will not rest until he gets the chance to assassinate Emperor Selim.

Although, Elric notices, assassinating Emperor Selim has not been mentioned in any of their planning for the next stage of their journey.

The previous day, Elric had spent some time talking to people.

Finding things out. Using his old skills working taverns and pot shops, batting his eyelashes, asking questions.

It was almost too easy. There are a lot of sly men on Luxoria.

And Elric’s greatest skill is getting sly men to talk to him, perhaps revealing a secret or two for a bitten lip or a flirtatious wink.

The task was made slightly more difficult because Lukas insisted on sitting on a nearby table, staring broodily at him.

But Elric knew exactly where the line was and was well practised in dancing right up to the edge of it.

And Lukas’s jealous scowling had paid off in their cabin on the White Watch later that night, when Lukas had roped Elric’s wrists behind his back, had him kneel and made him suck the hook like it was an elegant silver cock.

When Lukas was satisfied with that, he’d had Elric beg to be fucked, making him tell Lukas over and over that no one else could give him what Lukas could, before Lukas finally slid his cock into Elric’s desperate hole, with the point of the hook at Elric’s throat.

And Elric’s day’s work had been fruitful in its own right too.

Damon had remembered Vindar telling him that Tobi worked as a Beast Tamer with some travelling players called Copperhead Circus.

Elric had found some traders from Northern Azuria who had seen Copperhead Circus performing near Ceruleum and had confirmed that they did have a Beast Tamer who claimed to be one of Prince Rafus’s bastards.

“And,” Elric had announced to the galley on his return, “from your description, sounds like it truly is him.”

“Vindar’s information is never wrong, sadly” Damon said .

“He has a lycat, they say. An orange one.”

“Didn't he used to love the lycats in the Rose Palace?” says Lukas. “He used to follow their trainer around. And,” Lukas frowns in thought, furrows on his handsome brow. “didn’t a lycat go missing when he left in the night with his mother?”

Damon shakes his head. “It can’t be the same lycat. How long does a lycat live?”

“Around twelve years,” says Lyr.

Trysta, sitting beside Lyr at the long table with Marko on her lap, slings an arm around Lyr’s shoulders and kisses him on the temple. “Is their nothing you don’t know, my sweet wife of Damon Darekul?”

Lyr had made a soft cooing noise to be called so and it had made Elric wonder if it would be sweet to be called the wife of Lukas Darekul.

“Anyway,” Elric says. “One of them boasted that he’d gone back to Tobi’s caravan and after a bit of bed sport they’d spoken about things and Tobi mentioned that his mother lived at the Ceruleum Bride House.”

Lukas exchanges a glance with Damon. “Mareena?” Lukas says, “Mareena of Archa has become a Bride of Zai?”

“Yes” Elric says, “which means there is somewhere we could send Tobi a message. Warning him about Vindar. Apparently he visits his mother once a moon.”

“And Perl said one of us would encounter Ur-Durik in the Amber Forest. That must be Tobi,” says Damon. “We need to get in touch with him as soon as we can and find out if that is true.”

“If Perl wasn’t simply spinning stories,” Lukas says with a shrug. “Perhaps he was just a madman.”

“You saw him do magic, bastard,” says Elric. He is certain Perl was some kind of fae. He didn’t think the fae ever left their lands north of Ismagaar, but what other explanation could there be for what they’d seen? The things Perl had known?

Lukas, still sour after watching Elric flirt all day, says, “Doesn’t mean he was not telling us a tale. We do not have any reason to think that any of these tales of old demons returning are true.”

“No,” Damon says, “Which is why we must find out what is written on Lyr’s skin.”

But it was agreed they should find a messenger to take a letter to the Ceruleum Bride House, telling Tobi to seek them out in Attar where they could warn him about Vindar and Ur-Durik.

“We can’t send him a letter,” Lukas says. “Tobi can’t read.”

Damon frowns. “Of course he can read. He was educated with us.”

“Yes. And he couldn’t read. He hated book lessons. He said the letters moved around the page.”

“Whether this beast tamer can read or not is one thing,” says Trysta, “but are you really going to write down that Tobi Darekul ought to come to Attar to meet with his brothers Lukas and Damon? If that letter was lost we would be met with executioners when we arrived.”

“Perhaps,” says Opeth, “some sort of code.”

After a day at sea, Elric is walking alone on deck. The weather is squally and rough and Lukas and Lyr are in the galley with Razelii and Trysta playing arca. Elric likes playing arca, but the sea had grown so rough it made him feel dizzy. He feels much better now he can see the horizon .

He’s leaning over the rail when he sees someone walking along the deck towards him.

Damon.

Elric does not speak to Damon much, and in truth he is still deeply in awe of the One Man Army. He finds himself standing up straight as Damon approaches him. “Elric,” Damon says in his deep, slow voice. “I would speak to you in my cabin.”

Elric feels distinctly nervous as he steps into Damon’s cabin. The White Watch is not a large ship, but the cabin is fitted for an Imperial Army General, well appointed with shiny brass and shelves of books. Damon sits behind a large polished desk and bids Elric sit opposite him.

“What can I do for you?” Elric says. He feels his face colour a little. Are all Rafus’s bastards so handsome? Elric wonders what Tobi looks like. The descriptions of him from the merchants he met sounded wildly exaggerated. Multi-coloured hair and elaborate outfits that barely covered his body.

“I wish to ask about the talk in the Rose Palace after I was exiled,” Damon says.

“What of it?”

“How is the story told? You said people assume me dead.”

“Yes,” says Elric. He shifts in the chair. “You were flogged in public. Many saw how badly you were hurt. I was there. You were unable to stand.”

“I could stand,” Damon says bluntly. “I stood at the justice.”

“I suppose. Many more people saw the flogging. And it was assumed by most people that exile on a deserted isle, injured as you were, you would simply perish. It was made public that you were to be left with only food and water for forty days and nights and no boat and none from Azuria were to assist you.” Elric pauses. “How did you survive?”

“I expected it,” Damon says. “I knew what the empire would do to me. I had made plans to survive on Sanvicta for longer. Although I was also helped. But Atticul came to get my leave to marry Inez. He saw me there living and he took Lyr back to Attar.” Damon narrows his eyes.

“I take it the Rose Court do not know of this.”

“They don’t,” says Elric. “I doubt anyone knows. I never heard that Lyr was brought back to Attar. And I knew many things.” He sucks his bottom lip.

“So why would Atticul keep that a secret? If I was alive on Sanvicta? Keeping that a secret has protected me. Why would Atticul ever protect me?”

Elric thinks. He tips his head back a moment and looks up at the panelled wood ceiling.

“I can guess. I think,” he says, looking back to Damon.

“there are things you do not know. Or I do not think you know. When you were exiled your father was distraught. Quite dramatically. After the period of official mourning for Endrew, he commenced one for you. He wore his black and ashes on his face for another moon’s turn and then, last winter, he announced that he would be leaving Attar.

The story was that he could not forgive Selim for exiling you into death. ”

“Someone told him I was dead?”

“It seems rather that Atticul told him he found you dead on Sanvicta.”

“Why?”

“Vindar.” says Elric bluntly. “Your father did not just move his household to Ceruleum, to the Ivory Palace. He abdicated his place in the royal line. I’m not sure if that has been officially announced, but all the Rose Palace knows.

Atticul will be named Crown Prince. It may have already happened.

That’s one more person who was standing between Vindar’s son and the throne out of the way and,” Elric nods at Damon, “if the throne passes directly from Selim to Atticul there is no chance of Rafus legitimising his bastard sons. It would be easy to persuade Atticul that to ensure his birthright it would be better if his father’s grief were leveraged to ensure he never sat the throne. ”

“I see,” Damon nods. “That does sound like Vindar’s scheming.

It is certainly useful for me that the empire considers me dead.

Although, we must not forget that both Atticul and Vindar know the truth.

I am sure that by now Vindar has sent men to see if I returned to Sanvicta after we took Lyr from the dungeons. ”

“I would be more wary than that,” says Elric. “The Thousand Eyes will know people in Luxoria. He may already have sighted you. He has people everywhere.”

“Weren’t you one of them?”

“You do not trust me? People change. Weren’t you the most fearsome General in the Imperial Army?”

Damon gives a single curt nod. “One more thing.” he says. Elric sees him swallow. He is certain this is something Damon wants to ask him more than anything else. Something he is scared to ask. “Lady Inez,” he says. “is she betrothed to Atticul?”

Elric shakes his head and he sees the relief on Damon’s usually impassive face. “Doroth Zain said it was against the will of Zai for a woman to marry a man if she had lain with his brother. Many people consider this an odd reading of the Book of the Rules, but Atticul could not stand against it.”

“Does she remain in Swen? With her family?”

“Oh no,” says Elric. “She is in Attar. Atticul gifted her Sanglora when he was wooing her. He claimed it was meant as a wedding tribute and must be returned. But Inez’s father backed her claim that as he had no right to marry her in the eyes of Zai it could not be tied to her making a union with him.

Doroth Zain agreed. Atticul tried to challenge it, but he could not find a way.

It was quite the scandal.” Damon smiles and Elric cannot help echoing.

“An unmarried woman being mistress of Sanglora.”

Damon shakes his head slowly from side to side and then he starts to laugh.

Elric grins back. “The Rose Court debated the subject for some time but in the end Selim granted that as she had been wronged by you and your perversions, the Darek bloodline should allow it.”

Damon laughs even harder.