Page 70

CHAPTER

Seventy

A NDREN HAD CALLED FOR WINE . He drank it with deep appreciation, in a golden cup, sitting informally on the throne steps. “From the Talaka vineyard, Lady Tala,” he said, raising a toast to her. “And very fine it is, too.”

Ruko remained kneeling at his father’s feet, a fallen statue.

Neema could not take her eyes off Andren. He was very like his son in looks, they shared the same refined features, the same straight black brows. But he had ten times Ruko’s charisma. She hated him—furiously, she hated him. For stealing the throne. For using her. For sending his own daughter into exile. He was a monster. But still she saw how she could be seduced by him, if he were selling something she wanted. Ruko’s charisma repelled, like a shield. Andren’s charisma dragged you in; you had to fight to resist it.

She should have known it would take someone more audacious than Gedrun Stour to steal the throne. And—now she thought of it—of course Andren hadn’t died in a bungled coup. The arch-strategist, always thinking ten steps ahead. The Golden Tiger of Samra did not bungle things.

Her gaze travelled beyond the throne to the Fox, crumpled beneath its portrait in its flame-bordered coat. One leg bent, one leg straight. Surely it was pretending. Waiting for the right moment to spring to its feet, and leap out of the window.

Sol wasn’t so sure. The Fox was the Guardian of Entrances and Exits. It was also the Guardian of Afternoon Naps. It might be plotting, Neema, yes. Or it might be dreaming of rabbit stew.

The room had turned quiet as Andren drank his wine. Sometimes he looked at the Dragon on the ceiling. Sometimes he contemplated his son. “We are waiting for your mother,” he said, waving for his glass to be refilled. “We are not on the best of terms, alas.” He tweaked an eyebrow at the understatement. “But she helps me, nonetheless. People are so easy to manipulate, once you know what they desire. You wanted the throne. Vabras desires order.”

Vabras. Everyone had forgotten Vabras again.

“And you. My dear Neema…” Andren looked straight at her. “You just wanted a friend. Someone to talk to about your work.”

Neema’s skin shrivelled. It was true, that was the worst part.

With a sudden jolt of panic, Andren flung his wine away and pressed his fingers to his hairline, pulling the skin taut. Then he did the same at his temple, and along his jawline. After a moment, he settled back against the throne steps, but he kept his gaze firmly on the doors now, and did not speak again.

After a couple of uncomfortable minutes Yasila arrived, accompanied by Jadu. The Servant of the Dragon was gagged with a steel muzzle and her hands were bound, to prevent her from casting. Her appearance told a story of failed resistance. Her rose-gold hair was coming free from its plait, and a bruise was forming along one freckled cheek. Both she and Yasila were scratched and cut from their fight.

Andren rose and came down the steps again to greet his prisoner. “Servant Jadu. What a pleasure to see you face to face again after all these years.”

Jadu’s pale amber eyes filled with disgust.

“Do you see that, Yasila? She hates me almost as much as you do.” Andren laughed, but as he did so, one cheek began to droop, turning his smile into a strange, lopsided leer.

The curse of the Soul Stealer, Sol said, to Neema. He takes from his victim, and the spell takes from him.

Rivenna rushed to Andren’s side. “See how he suffers for us,” she said, to the room. “See the toll it takes on him.”

Andren’s face was now ghoulishly distorted. The sharper angles were softening, the flesh pulling away from the bone. One eye bulged from its socket. His mouth gaped.

Rivenna guided him down to his knees, in front of his son. “Take what you need,” she coaxed. “That’s what he’s for. See how I have forged him in your image…”

Andren, struggling now, pressed his hands on either side of Ruko’s head. Ruko tried fitfully to wrench himself free, but he was trapped.

Neema’s stomach dropped: a primal warning that something terrible was about to happen.

Sol was fluttering anxiously in her chest. Neema, look away.

But she couldn’t. She watched, transfixed, as Andren murmured the words of the spell. A different song now, another one she had taught him. “Give to me your greatest treasure. I shall use it well…” His pupils dilated, twin vortexes, hungry for light. And began to feed.

If he could move, Ruko would be writhing in agony. The pain was so intense, it gave him back his voice. He screamed, as the spell ripped through him, searching for the deepest, most essential part of him. His soul. His being.

Some things are worse than death.

“No, no…” Ruko howled. “Stop…”

Yasila, standing apart, dug her nails into her palms.

Andren’s form began to shift. His chest broadened, he grew taller. His jawline tightened as he took on a younger aspect. A familiar face. Handsome, aloof. Ruko was staring at himself. Not a disguise, not a reflection, but a piece of himself.

Ruko’s eyes rolled back in his head. He started to convulse.

Andren let go.

As his son slumped to the floor, he stood up, glowing with renewed energy and power. He lifted his arms, displaying his new self. “How do I look? Better?” Ruko’s voice, but in a tone he would never use. Teasing. Careless.

Yasila unclenched her fists. There was blood on her palms, where her nails had cut the skin.

Andren freed himself of the Old Bear’s iron crown, his red and black tunic. Rubbing a hand across his newly toned stomach, he grinned at Rivenna. “An improvement, wouldn’t you say? Pass me his jacket.”

Rivenna showed no pity as she stripped Ruko of his coat. At last she was able to reveal what she really thought of the student she had trained so assiduously. Nothing.

Andren shrugged on the jacket and the image was complete. “Shame about that,” he said, eyeing the bandage wrapped around his son’s arm from wrist to elbow. “I’ll have to wear the scars, I suppose. Damn. He was so nearly perfect.” He smoothed the creases from the jacket in a gesture that was purely his. Neema, who had stood in line next to Ruko for six days, could see other differences, too. Not just the mannerisms, but the spirit beneath. But very few people had studied Ruko as closely as she had. As far as the world was concerned, this was Emperor Ruko the First. The legitimate ruler of Orrun.

And so Andren Valit usurped the throne a second time.

The real Ruko was beginning to come round. He let out a soft moan, as a couple of Hounds dragged him back, away from the throne steps.

“Your majesty, it is time,” Vabras said. At his command, the entrance doors were barred, the great window locked.

The Fox had missed its chance to escape. Neema’s heart sank further.

Andren’s allies were moving around the room with clear, practised steps. Whatever was about to happen had been rehearsed many times before. Lord Clarion and Lady Harmony, Kindry and Havoc fanned out to the edges, while Yasila led Jadu to the middle of the throne steps. Andren and Rivenna remained standing beneath the portrait of the Dragon, holding hands like a married couple.

“You are ready?” he asked her, grinning with excitement. The effect was jarring. Ruko didn’t grin like that, ever. He kissed her. “Is it strange, that I look like him?”

She touched his face—Ruko’s face. “I’ll get used to it.”

The Hounds pushed Tala and Neema forward.

“Ahh, Neema,” Andren said, taking her hand and squeezing it fondly. “Are you beginning to understand what you have done for me? Who could have guessed you would be so pivotal to my success?” He laughed, amazed. “A drab little Raven scholar from Scartown.”

I was never drab, Neema thought. You fucking monster.

Andren was still laughing. “Eight. I thought Vabras had lost his mind when he brought you to me. But you helped me solve a great puzzle, Neema. I had a vision, and you made it real.”

A vision. The Dragon Trial. She looked at him, and she knew—because they had both walked through the Dragon’s fire—he was talking of something he had seen that day.

“Yes,” he breathed. The spell would not let him say more. But…

yes.

“Folk tales,” he said, to the room. “Myths and legends. Ancient songs. They hold secrets: powerful secrets that we should never have forgotten. Neema,” he gave her a side hug, while she glared at him, “helped me find them again. She led me to the door, and handed me the key to… everything.” He gestured expansively to the portraits that wrapped around the throne room. “The Scriptures tell us the Guardians have always been here, watching over us. Not true. Remember, Neema, all that information you collected for me on the old tribes. Glimpses of a time before the Catastrophe. A time when there were many lands, many empires, all rich with life. Before our ancestors gathered here, the last-remaining sanctuary. Thousands of references, from countless archives, the most glancing of phrases, the smallest of footnotes. A vast undertaking. But you didn’t see the truth at the heart of them. Did you?”

Neema shook her head, mystified.

Andren, dazzled by his own brilliance, clenched his fists in triumph. “I knew it.”

“My love,” Rivenna warned. “It is almost time—”

Andren scowled at her. “No. I want her to understand. She’s the only one…” He turned back to Neema. “Think back. Thousands of descriptions. Think. Did you find a single reference to the Eight?”

Neema sifted through her memories with increasing consternation. Her brows furrowed. There had to be… there must have been one mention.

“You see?” Andren was watching her intently. “If the Guardians have always been here, why did our ancient ancestors never speak of them?”

“You’re saying the Eight don’t exist?”

“Oh…” Andren beamed. “They exist. What I’m saying, Neema, is that we created them.”

—Sol. Is that true?

Sol sank his head beneath his shoulders, and did not answer.

Andren was speaking to the room again. “Forget the Scriptures. This is the truth; this is what history teaches us. Tens of thousands of years ago, this world suffered a great Catastrophe. We know this. We see it. The empire is bordered by scarred lands, poisoned forests, empty seas. And we know that the old tribes wielded magic far more powerful than our own. That is why their songs, their melodies are the strongest. Our ancestors created the Eight to protect us from another Catastrophe. But the Eight evolved in unexpected ways. They grew powerful, and demanding. No longer Guardians but Tyrants. For as long as we can remember, they have held us down. How we cringe, terrified of their final Return. But why should we fear what we created? Why should we bow to them? No longer.” He opened his arms wide again, glaring in defiance at the Dragon on the ceiling. “Let them come! We are ready for them.”

Silence.

“Guardians of the Eight! Come take your vengeance, if I am wrong!”

“Stop!” Tala cried, terrified. She appealed to the room. “Is this what you want? The Last Return? Are you all mad?”

Smug smiles, knowing glances. “We trust in our emperor,” Lady Harmony said, earning a glowing smile from Andren.

“Your Majesty,” Havoc said. “Show them the omen.”

Andren clapped his hands, pleased. “Yes, yes… This will put your mind at ease, Lady Tala.”

A guard crossed behind the throne and returned with a small cage, draped in a gold cloth.

Andren took it from her. “Three years ago we opened a path to the Hidden Realm. A dress rehearsal, if you like. And look what clambered through.” He whisked off the cloth, like a magician.

Pink-Pink lay tucked in a corner, vibrating with fury.

That’s what Neema had forgotten.

“A chameleon, of all creatures.” Andren laughed, as he held the cage up high. “A sign from the universe that our cause is just.”

Pink-Pink hissed in virulent rage, and tried to bite Andren’s finger.

Tala’s brow crinkled. “How is that a sign…”

Andren touched his chest. “I am the master of the Chameleon Spell.”

“The Chameleon Spell?” Neema repeated. “That’s not what the Dragons call it.”

Andren gave her a sharp look. “It is what I call it.” He handed the cage back to the guard.

A cage… And Neema understood, at last, why they were here in the throne room. Why they needed Yasila, and her magic. Why each portrait was soaked in Dragonscale. What had the Fox said? The walls smelled like home. “You want the Eight to Return. You’re going to trap them. Bind them in the walls. That’s impossible.”

“Impossible anywhere but here,” Andren corrected her. “A place of power. The greatest place of power in the world. This is the birthplace of the Eight. Right here on this spot. I am sure of it. I can feel it. Here we made them. Here we will bind them.”

—Sol? Is he right?

Sol hunkered further down in Neema’s chest, claws curled tight against her rib.

“You can’t just summon the Eight with a click of your fingers,” Neema said. “They won’t come if they don’t want to.”

Andren unsheathed Hurun-tooth, the cursed blade, and passed it to Rivenna. “My dear Neema. They won’t have a choice.”

He walked back up the marble steps, and took his seat on the throne. The emperor did not get his own hands dirty.

Forgotten at the base of the steps, Ruko looked up at his father, his usurper. This was the vision shown to him in the Dragon Trial. A cruel trick. He had seen not himself but a shadow; a dark reflection. A stolen part of himself.

A tear slid from his eye and dropped on to the first marble step. This was as far as he would come to ruling Orrun. This far and no further.