A bead of sweat trickled down the man’s hairline. Marten leaned in.

  “And believe me,” he whispered into the assassin’s ear, “it won’t be long before you find out.” Taking a step back, he locked gazes with the man. “You might lessen the consequences if you tell me what I want to know.”

  “Nothing can help me now. You have no idea who you’re up against!”

  Marten frowned. “You do realise you won’t be leaving this room? Whoever it is, they can’t get to you now. I can make this quick, or we can take our time. It’s up to you.”

  Tears spun away from the man’s face as his head wagged, and Marten realised with shock they were tears of laughter. Bitter laughter to be sure, but laughter nonetheless.

  “You are as naïve as I was led to believe.” His face grew serious again. “Enjoy it while you can, young king. Oh, to be so innocent once more.”

  Stung, Marten raised a fist, but lowered it again.

  I am not a barbarian, no matter what You want me to think of myself, he railed at the deity.

  “I haven’t been innocent since the day my mother was murdered,” he said. “And if you think fairness is a sign of naiveté, you merely proclaim your ignorance. On the other hand, don’t mistake my sense of decency for mercy. I will discover who paid you, and I’ll deal with them as they deserve, I’m simply offering you a deal that speeds up the inevitable for us both.”

  The first signs of genuine emotion flitted across the assassin’s face. Fear, yes. And desperation. Marten wondered how the man had been recruited to his task: had he not known where it would lead?

  “If I tell you, you’ll do it now?”

  Was the entreaty real? The fear most certainly was. The man’s fists bunched, arms rigid. Marten measured the distance between them, and the length of the chain. He reversed another step.

  The prisoner darted a glance towards the closed door. “Don’t leave me to them. I’ve seen how they do it.”

  Marten held his neutral expression. He had no idea what the man was talking about; the Temple did not perform executions. Or did they? What did anyone outside of the priesthood really know about what went on inside this behemoth of a building?

  Another mystery to unravel on a different day.

  “You have my word. Now, tell me.”

  “I can’t tell you his name; I never heard it. I can tell you he’s a priest, but not of this Temple.”

  “What then: a Rylondese priest?”

  The man shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. The Temples are all connected; what one does, another knows and condones. This man is a priest, but not from any Temple you know.”

  Marten could feel his patience slipping away, running like juice from an overripe fruit crushed between his fingers.

  “If you don’t know his name, at least give me a description; something tangible I can hunt.”

  The assassin’s expression became guarded. He shook his head again. “I cannot. I never saw his true face.”

  “What in Charin’s Hell does that mean?” Marten yelled in frustration.

  The man shrugged. “I have nothing more to offer you. If you’re as smart as you think you are, you’ll work it out for yourself. Stay angry, my lord king; it may lead you along the true path.”

  Lips pressed together, no matter what Marten threatened, the prisoner refused to say anything more. Willing to take the man’s advice and remain angry, Marten strode to the door and yanked it open. Davi, who’d been standing with his back against it, jumped forward and spun round. The priest, the priestess, and Marten’s bodyguard all regarded him in silent question.

  “Get in here,” Marten ordered. “Davi, it’s time.”

  Wearing a grim expression, Davi marched back into the cell with the clerics trailing behind. Marten didn’t care whether they witnessed this or not, but he wouldn’t have them interfering.

  “When we saw Padrus’s death had been quick, I promised I would do the same for his murderer.”

  Davi seized the man’s hair, yanked his head back, and slit his throat in one swift action. Blood jetted out, spattering the cleric’s white robes. Valaree let out a tiny squeak and stumbled backward. Freskin swung round in fury.

  “He was the Temple’s prisoner! We have our own way of dealing with criminals like him.”

  Marten was only too glad to continue sustaining the anger the assassin had urged; it melded with the thumping of his speeding heart, and the short, shallow breaths that were all he could seem to draw in that moment.

  “Don’t tell me this wasn’t my right: his crime was against my personal priest. That made it a crime against me.” Marten glared at Freskin, daring the priest to argue, but he backed down with a grudging bow.

  Marten returned his attention to the dying man. His twitching body sprawled across Davi’s boots, gulping and choking as the still pumping blood filled his lungs. Plainly no longer conscious, it was still a gruesome thing to watch.

  Marten had witnessed death before, during the coup, but never at his command. He clapped a hand over his mouth, grateful he’d not eaten that morning.

  Chel forgive me; I just killed someone. He can’t be fixed—he’s never going to stand up again, never draw another breath or speak another word. Did I really have that right?

  He gritted his teeth. I am the king; that gives me the right.

  Still, doubts assailed him.

  I know it had to be done, but did I allow my temper to sway me? Should we have taken him to the palace to interrogate?

  The gurgles began to die down, and Davi shifted the carcass off the toe of his blood-drenched boot. A scarlet pool spread across the floor, tiny runnels of the stuff travelling along the grooves between the stone flags like scarlet worms. The malodorous stink of loosening bowels rose from the body to mingle with the coppery smell of the exsanguination.

  “Time to leave, sire.”

  Marten nodded, not trusting his voice. He followed Davi from the cell without a backward glance. Valaree scuttled past him, but before Marten could raise an objection, he remembered they needed her guidance to leave the Temple.

  That she was also keeping them from straying into other areas of the building did not escape his notice, but at that moment all he could think of was getting outside into fresh air. The curdling brew of fresh blood mixed with devotional incense turned his stomach. He fought not to embarrass himself, and when they finally reached the atrium, he almost ran past the priestess to get out into clean daylight.

  He drew several deep breaths, and when he turned back, Valaree was gone. Only Davi stood there, concern clear on his face.

  “Are you well, sire?” he asked quietly. “That was something you should not have had to witness.”

  Marten allowed a wan smile. “It was something I needed to do. For Padrus.” He raked a set of fingers through his hair. “I’m afraid his fears have been borne out; the assassin claimed he was hired by a priest, but not of the Temple. That has to mean a priest of Charin, don’t you think?”

  Davi grimaced, but bit off his answer as a pair of priests hurried past them. A flurry of activity outside the stables delivered their horses in short order, and Marten swung into his saddle with huge relief. Somehow, things never seemed so dire when he was aboard Goldcrest.

  However, with the Temple diminishing behind them, and Davi chewing his lip in an agitated manner but not speaking, Marten’s thoughts fled back to the assassin’s gruesome death. He’d ordered executions before, in the early days following the coup, but this was the first he’d witnessed. Had he made the best choice? He couldn’t have shown compassion to Padrus’s murderer, but might there have been a better death? An image of the shuddering body with its head flopping to one side, and blood cascading from the slashed neck, filled his mind.

  Stop it! You know it had to be done. Dead is dead, and it was quicker than many.

  He gave himself a mental shake. Goldcrest shifted uneasily beneath him, and he realised his unsettled emotions were distressing his horse.

  “Sorry, boy. Not your problem.” He patted the gleaming shoulder. The stallion heaved a deep sigh and settled back to his previous amble.

  Marten wished it was as easy for him to relax.

  Everything led back to Charin’s Cult. Padrus’s murder, Urien’s plot to supplant him, possibly even the extended unrest amongst both nobles and commoners, challenging his reign at every turn since the coup. Could the recent assassination attempt be yet another symptom? Marten still felt certain the first attack had been an opportunistic seizure of extraordinary circumstances, but the recent one?

  How far had the Cult’s tendrils infiltrated?

  Deliberately, Marten roused his anger again, this time with clear direction. It was time to go on the offensive, to cut out the canker before this beautiful continent they’d claimed fell victim to the cultists’ evil magic, to suffer the destruction visited on humanity’s last homeland.

  Marten was not willing to let history repeat.

  Grudgingly, he forced himself to confront the option he’d striven to avoid: his most valuable tool to infiltrate the Cult would undoubtedly be Betha. She was already in a position of trust with Urien, and that seemed the most promising snag in the weave to pick away at and unravel. Which meant he would have to work closely with Betha, despite last night’s debacle.

  Goldcrest pranced beneath him, and Marten relaxed his death-grip on the reins. He removed one hand, shook it to release the tension, and scratched the agitated stallion on the withers.

  Yesterday, the prospect of continuing to work closely with Betha would have thrilled him. Now, he felt so conflicted he couldn’t even contemplate how to start untangling the jumbled threads of his emotions.

  No matter. He would work out his own issues for the good of the kingdom. He drew himself up taller and rode on, towards whatever the deities saw fit to throw at him next.

  27. FEVER

  “WHY DOES HE CRY SO much?”

  Risada fiddled with the frayed blanket swaddling Halson, attempting to tuck its ragged ends more tightly around him. She frowned down at Chayla, who trudged along the grass beside Greylegs, the goat’s lead rope held loosely in her hand. Even though the baby might have been safer with Chayla than where he was, lodged between Risada and the pommel of her saddle, she refused to consider handing him over.

  “You keep disturbing him. He’s probably overtired,” Chayla answered, and Risada yearned to slap the woman for sounding so reasonable. She’d always assumed motherhood would be a stroll in the garden for someone who’d lived a life as challenging as hers, so why did she not have any of the instincts Chayla seemed to possess in abundance?

  Risada glanced over her shoulder at the rolling hills behind them, dull green mounds beneath a haze of light cloud. As soon as Rustam had declared himself fit to ride, they’d abandoned the cave and descended into the southern reaches of Tyr-en. A day out from the foothills, they’d bypassed Risada’s estate at Domn, half a day to the east of their route to the capital. Stopping at Domn had been tempting, but quite apart from the desire to pay her respects at her husband’s grave in Darshan, Risada felt a pressing need to present Hal’s son to the king as soon as possible. Much though the situation displeased her, until Marten had a child of his own, Halson was next in line to the throne.

  So far, they’d kept to fields and tracks, where the first signs of autumn tinged the foliage with gold, and the fresh smell of ploughed fields was muted by recent rainfall. In deliberately avoiding the outlying farms and manors, Risada acknowledged she was allowing paranoia to rule her path, but since the coup, she couldn’t bring herself to trust anyone outside her immediate circle.

  At their current speed, Darshan now lay no more than two days’ ride ahead, and her arguments and pleas for Rustam to turn back before anyone saw him rang with increasing desperation. Why was he so stubborn? The fool had a death sentence hanging over him, and yet he refused to believe Annasala would enforce her decree.

  Risada frowned at Rustam’s back. He rode in front of her, tall and straight on his blood bay Shivan stallion, hips swinging supplely with the sway of the horse’s walk, as if they danced together. Risada’s joints ached just watching. In fact, her whole body complained, her previous injuries exacerbated by her fight with Hext-al. She was only six years Rustam’ senior, but watching his lithe body made her feel old.

  Halson grizzled again. Risada’s fingers twitched; there must be something she could do for her son.

  “We should stop,” she said. “I think he’s hungry.”

  Rustam wheeled Fleetfoot around. He stood up in his stirrups and scanned the surrounding hills and arable fields.

  “It all looks clear,” he declared before dismounting. “No water that I can see, but we’ve enough in our canteens to brew tea.”

  He slipped Fleetfoot’s bridle over his ears and gave the horse a slap on the rump. The stallion raised a playful heel towards him, before ambling off to graze.

  “Here, I’ll take him.” Rustam held his arms up to take the baby while Risada slithered ungracefully down Greyleg’s side.

  “Thank you,” she said, as he handed Halson back. “Rusty, please, I need you to reconsider.”

  Rustam unbuckled Greyleg’s bridle, and the gelding fell to eating alongside Fleetfoot. The goat joined them.

  “I know what you’re going to say, but save your breath: I’m going with you and that’s an end to it. There could be more bandits or wild animals out here, even traitors who’d be thrilled to find the heir to the throne unguarded. I’m not leaving you.”

  “You’re stubborn to the point of stupidity! What happens when we get there, and Sala has you executed? Don’t think I’ll forgive you for bringing that on yourself!”

  “She won’t do it—she’s my sister.”

  Risada huffed. “This is your life we’re talking about. You can’t rely on a relationship Sala would rather didn’t exist. She’s pretty messed up, if you hadn’t noticed, and she has Valaree whispering in her ear; I wouldn’t trust that woman any more than I would a troll at a picnic. Remember what I told you about her? This is a priestess who does magic, and calls it the power of the goddess.”

  Chayla’s amused cackle spun Risada around.

  “What are you laughing at, crazy woman?”

  Staring at the bush the nanny goat was browsing, Chayla tilted her head on one side, ignoring Risada in favour of the twiggy plant.

  “They don’t understand, do they. Should I explain?”

  Risada stoppered her annoyance, knowing it would get her nowhere. She’d tried quizzing Chayla about the identity of her invisible companion, and about the werecat’s strange deference, while they’d waited for Rustam to recover, but nothing the woman said made any sort of sense.

  “She truly is crazy, isn’t she?” Risada glanced at Rustam for confirmation. He raised his eyebrows.

  “Perhaps she can see something we can’t? I know how you feel about magic, Risada, but I can assure you there’s a lot more out here than you know, and not all of it wants to be seen.”

  Risada shuddered. Halson began to cry in earnest. Exasperated, Risada grabbed hold of the other woman’s shoulder, and gave it a quick shake.

  “Chayla! Make yourself useful: that nanny won’t milk herself.”

  Blinking like an owl, Chayla wandered over to Greylegs, still muttering to her invisible companion. She rummaged in the horse’s saddle bags for the precious elven bottle that had originally contained caris dew, sent with Halson when he was returned from Shiva. Now, with a teat Chayla had fashioned from a waxy flower, it served as a means of feeding him the goat’s milk.

  Risada squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t trust Chayla, and yet the deranged woman was the only one who could soothe Halson when he became fractious. It irked Risada to the verge of homicide, yet for the sake of her son, she stayed her hand.

  “Let me hold him,” Chayla offered once she’d filled the bottle.

  “No.” Risada couldn’t help herself from clutching her baby tighter. Predictably, his wails escalated to howls.

  Chayla’s mouth pursed. “I can’t feed him like that.”

  “Just give it to me,” Risada ground out from between gritted teeth. Chayla handed the bottle over, but no matter how Risada presented it, Halson turned his face away, refusing the teat.

  “Why will he take it from you, but not from me?”

  Chayla ignored her, peering closely at the tightly swaddled baby. She laid the back of her hand to his forehead. “He’s too hot,” she declared.

  “How can he be too hot? It isn’t that warm today,” Risada protested.

  Chayla extended her hands as if she was about to lift the baby away from Risada. Tears sprang to Risada’s eyes as Halson wriggled, appearing to reject her for the other woman’s embrace.

  And then his body stiffened.

  His eyes rolled back, showing only the gleaming whites, and foam bubbled from between his lips.

  “What’s happening?” Risada’s heart raced. “Chayla, what’s wrong with him?”

  “Strip him,” Chayla ordered. “I told you he was too hot!”

  Helplessness overwhelmed Risada, and she thrust the rigid baby towards Chayla. “I don’t know what to do. Help him, please!”

  Chayla shook her head. “He’s best with his mother.” She yanked the blanket away from the tiny, stiff body, exposing flushed skin and shaking fists. Foam continued to froth from his mouth. “Turn him on his side so he doesn’t swallow it.”

  Tears slipped down Risada’s cheeks. “What is it? He can’t die! Do something!” She knew her demand was irrational, but she didn’t care. How could her baby, that she’d only just found, be dying?

  Chayla shook her head. “He’s not dying, Risada, he has a fever. Fevers cause convulsions.”

  “You’re certain? How do you know?”

  Chayla’s haggard features softened with compassion. Risada was unsure if it was for her, or the baby. Either way, gratitude welled inside her. Had Chayla not been here, she would have no idea what to think, or do.

  “I’ve seen this before. We must nurse him through the fever, but Chel willing, it won’t happen again.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37