Page 68 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

LUKAS

L ukas sits on the bed he shares with Elric in the poky attic room of Sanglora, listlessly feeding Marko some of his scraps. They have already been stuck here almost a moon’s turn. Doroth Zain, it turns out, has travelled to Ceruleum and is not expected back until after the Feast of Flames.

They know this thanks to Elric. Elric is working hard.

Using his particular skills to gather information and get messages into the Rose Palace.

He seems to have many trusted contacts still in Attar and can work wonders by simply going out for an afternoon in a pair of tight breeches and talking to people in taverns.

He returns in a whirl of energy, shaking out his cloak, petting Marko, kissing Lukas with a mouth that tastes of peach wine, chiding him for being moody, offering to get straight on his knees, as that would “cheer any man, even you, Bastard.” Beneath the cloak he wears a silk shirt that Inez acquired for him.

It is held closed by a single button. He looks quite delightful.

Lukas supposes that is the point. He knows how Elric extracts information .

“Well,” says Damon, coming out of the tiny chamber he shares with Lyr, to stand in the doorway of Lukas and Elric’s room. “Did you speak to him?”

Elric nods, “Just a moment. I’ve eaten nothing all day.” He winks, sitting down on the bed beside Lukas. He picks up a heel of bread from a tray on the floor and takes a bite.

Lukas sniffs. He trusts the Lordling. He does. But the wretch does like to taunt Lukas, flaunting his easy attractiveness to other men. Usually it is in the hope that Lukas will play along, pin Elric down on the bed and remind him who he belongs to.

But Lukas is in no mood for Elric’s favourite game.

So he simply waits for Elric to swallow his mouthful of bread and say, “I spoke with him, but the Hare cannot come here. He is bound by his oaths not to leave the Rose Palace.”

Damon frowns. “Why would he not be allowed out of the Rose Palace? He is of the Order of the Enforcer not the Immurite.”

Elric shrugs. “He told me so himself. Or I assume it was him, under that veil.”

Damon makes an irritated grunting noise. “We will have to find a way for Lyr and I to get safely into the Rose Palace to see him. Perhaps if we have the assistance of Doroth Zain when he returns.”

Lukas says, “While we are waiting for your dearest friend Doroth Zain to return, what about our other business in Attar?”

Damon sighs, “There is no other business in Attar. We have discussed this.”

“We have not discussed it. You have simply decreed what we will do. ”

“Lukas,” Damon says tightly. “I said no.”

“You cannot simply say no,” Lukas snaps. He feels like he has had this frustrating conversation with Damon so many times. “Emperor Selim must die. He tried to kill you.”

“Vindar tried to kill me.”

“Very well then, I’ll kill Vindar too. I’ll kill them all.”

“Will you? After it went so well last time.”

Lukas inhales. He can feel his anger rising. “This time I have Vindar’s spy in my bed.” He puts an arm around Elric.

Damon rolls his eyes. “We are here for one reason alone. To find out about what is written on Lyr’s back.

Do you really think we could remain in Attar after you enact your schemes?

If you were caught, when it was discovered who you were?

Vindar knows I am alive, Atticul knows I am alive.

It would be traced back to me. Remember Vindar’s old rule about punishing all Bastards the same? ”

“I won’t be caught,” Lukas snaps.

Damon shakes his head. “Even if you weren’t. Even if you were successful it would mean the end of our time in Attar.”

“It will not. We will not be implicated. I have already made a plan. The Lordling knows a way into that private shrine. I can get in when Selim is there for his dawn prayers, cut his throat and be gone before anyone even knows what has happened.”

“No,” Damon growls.

Lukas stands up. He is boiling with rage.

Damon. How had he forgotten what Damon was like? How infuriating he could be?

He runs the tips of his fingers over the point of his hook as he steps forward, squaring up to Damon.

Damon is so tall and the room so low that Damon’s head almost touches the eaves.

In a low quiet voice Lukas says, “You know what the empire did to the men who came with me to kill Selim five years ago. Not the ones who died in the palace. The ones they caught.”

“I know,” Damon says. “I know. I was there.”

“And you did nothing.”

“There was nothing I could do.”

“There is something you can do now.”

Damon stares down at Lukas.

Behind him, Lukas hears Elric sigh dramatically and flop down on the bed. He doesn’t like this. He’s trying to break the tension, but Lukas has no time for the Lordling’s dramatics.

“Who have you lost?” Lukas says in a low snarl.

Damon’s green eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

“Who has the empire taken from you?”

Lukas sees Damon’s jaw go tight with anger. “You think Azuria has not harmed me? The empire forced me into its brutal army. I saw many fall. Many I called friends. One I called lover. Much has been taken from me.”

“After the attempt to kill Selim failed,” Lukas growls back, “the empire sent troops into the hills. To kill Mortingales. I lost everyone. I lost Red Wolf. I lost my fucking hand.”

Damon sighs. He reaches out and touches Lukas’s upper arm, Lukas jerks it away. Damon says, “I know, Lukas. I know what happened. But we are not fighting the empire. You are no longer a Mortingale Outlaw. We are trying to find out about Ur-Durik. We have a plan. ”

“ We? No. Zai’s cock, Damon. You want to do that. You want to find out about your lover and all his scars. I want to fight the real enemy. ”

Damon shakes his head and turns away. He walks back to his own room, closing the door.

Lukas closes his own door as a matter of principle. Since they arrived in Sanglora, he has argued with Damon many times and often long into the night while everyone else is sleeping. Damon has never been anything but infuriating.

As Lukas sits back on the bed, Elric tugs on his arm. He turns. The Lordling’s silk shirt is now completely open. He looks delicious.

“I know what you’re thinking, Bastard,” Elric says in a low tone. “You’re going to go anyway.”

Lukas replies, “You are sure about the door to the shrine?”

Elric nods. Despite Damon’s objections, Lukas has made his plan.

It would be better to carry it out with Damon’s assent.

But Lukas is sure he will never get it. Lukas had been willing to do what Damon wanted first, to meet with the Hare and have him look at Lyr’s strange marking.

Lukas was willing to be patient. Up to a point.

And he had always come here to kill Selim.

Elric has told him of a storeroom beneath Selim’s private shrine, which has a connecting door to the servants’ wine cellar. He cannot wait here any longer. Not when he is this close.

“I’ll come with you,” Elric says.

“No.”

“I can help.”

“No.”

“You can’t go alone.”

“I’m not going alone.”

Lukas slips out of the small servants gate of Sanglora in the darkest point of the night. A tall figure in a hooded cloak waits for him, leaning against a wall. Her arms folded over her chest.

It was safer, they agreed, not to leave the attic at the same time.

She nods, “You ready?” Her imperial sword glitters at her hip.

“Ready.” Lukas looks at Trysta. “Are you sure you wish to do this? You are defying Damon.”

Trysta sniffs. “There is little I would hold above my loyalty to your brother. But there is one thing. Pluma. We have an alliance. I signed your papers. The Plumians and the Mortingales are bound together. United in our mission to kill the tyrannical emperor.”

Lukas swallows. “Very well.”

“Death to Emperor Selim then, Lukas Darekul.”

At dawn, Selim always comes to his private shrine to pray alone. Unaccompanied except for his guard, who wait outside the door, while Selim makes his deepest and most sacred connection with his God.

As expected, Selim is kneeling before the altar in his shrine, shaved head bowed, bare feet sticking out from the back of his unadorned robes, as Lukas emerges from the tiny trap door in the corner. He leans down and looks at Trysta behind him on the ladder.

He nods. She nods back.

“Do it now and do it fast. I have your back,” Trysta says.

Lukas needs no more of a signal. He springs up out of the trap door and races the short distance across the shrine, crying out, “In the name of the Mortingale Outlaws and the people of Pluma: Death to Emperor Selim.”

Selim looks round. He looks right at Lukas. He doesn’t seem to know him.

Lukas raises the Blue Blade. A blade that had always promised him it would take Emperor Selim’s head.

Finally. Finally.

The whole room starts to shake. Lukas halts, only a stride from his emperor uncle.

The statues of Zai on the altar seem to be alight.

Bright light pours from them. Lukas stares, standing in place, blade aloft.

Between the statues a strange shimmering seems to be opening.

It looks like a window. A glazed window and through it, Lukas can see.

Some kind of hall. And a pair of statues that match the ones in the shrine.

Is it a looking glass? Is he seeing a reflection?

No. Lukas blinks.

Apart from the statues, everything else through the shimmering window is different.

What is happening?

In the centre of the opening there is a figure, lit up by a light so powerful Lukas can barely stand to look upon it. But Lukas knows who he sees. Tobi. Tobi, a man grown.

Lukas feels Trysta’s hand on his shoulder. Her voice is urgent, laced with fear. “We need to go.”

Selim is kneeling at his feet, muttering prayers to his God. Face pale with fear.

He’s not going to fail again. Lukas cannot turn away now. No matter what is coming through that window. He lunges forward and thrusts his sword into Selim’s chest. The Blue Blade glows. With his hook, Lukas slices Selim’s throat.

The room is still shaking even more violently as Selim’s body falls to the floor. Dead. He’s finally dead .

“Now, Lukas Darekul,” Trysta says through her teeth. “We leave now.”

Lukas turns away. And as he does the door opens. Guards. Palace guards alerted by whatever is happening inside the shrine.

Flanked by the palace guards, is Atticul.

“What is happening here?” shouts Atticul in a voice that mixes fear and rage.

When he sees the glowing window, then looks to Selim’s body, he says, voice more shaky, “What is... Uncle? Your Majesty?” And then his eyes find Lukas’s.

His face twists with recognition. “Traitor, what have you done? What dark magic have you brought to this sacred place? You will die for this, bastard.”

But the room is still shaking. A chunk of ceiling falls, throwing up dust between Lukas and Atticul.

Trysta pulls at Lukas’s shoulder. But he does not move. He cannot.

Something rushes through the window. A cloud of purple smoke. The window closes behind it with a sound like the sucking of a hundred, hundred waves.

The rooms stops shaking. But the cloud whirls above them. It’s making a sound that is almost like laughter. Lukas screams out and lunges forward, trying to thrust his sword into it. But it’s smoke.

The cloud whirls and twists. It seems to form a shape. A great creature. A huge man.

It stands for a moment on the floor of the shrine. A man made of purple smoke. No, not a man. Far bigger than a man. A demon.

The smoke demon races across the room toward Atticul.

Atticul screams. The guards behind him draw their swords. There is a bright white flash and then, all is quiet. All is gone. Atticul stands there, looking at them .

The room is silent. Dust slowly settles to the floor. Lukas turns to Trysta. Her eyes are wide with fear.

They need to go. If they can get to the trap door.

But it is too late. There isn’t time. Lukas and Trysta are grabbed by the palace guards.

Lukas turns as his arms are dragged behind his back.

He looks at Atticul. Atticul’s eyes flash black.