The kheld king, p.2
The Kheld King, page 2
He also had not yet ordered her to leave.
“What does any of this have to do with me attending your wretched son’s coronation?”
“My father’s dream for Essera and Sordan. It’s in the letter. A united Triempery blessed by the Rill and the Wall. Strong, visionary, and true to his ideals.”
“I never believed in a united Triempery. I believed in him.”
“And now you can’t believe in Stefan?”
Dorilian scoffed, a harsh sound. “The only thing I believe about Stefan is that he’s an ass. For me to attend his coronation would be a sideshow, a distraction—we’d probably just have another fight.”
“It would be a statement. You swore to my father two years ago that you would not oppose Stefan as his successor. Would you now take that gift away?” If looks could kill, she would be dead already. She leaned forward, willing to match him glare for glare. “Do not make worthless the deaths of my father and yours, and all those others.”
A hundred people, all dead in a single act of murder, sorcery and fire. The Highborn and human rulers of Sordan and Essera, and of several allied domains also, not least of them the new young Kheld nation there to be brought into the privileged circle of Rill users. The new Rill treaty would have opened frontiers and changed the political landscape of the world. Dorilian knew better than she what had been lost that day, and how much had been taken from them. He was the only soul to have survived the slaughter, the only one to know what promises had been made.
“They didn’t die for him.”
No. They died to advance the plans of a monster. “They died for a future. My father died for wanting something more than this.”
His face hardened. “And now you want me to give Stefan legitimacy.”
She had expected that insult. “Stefan’s not asking for legitimacy. He has that already.”
Dorilian shrugged. He knew better than anyone the shaky pillars upon which her son’s kingship rested.
“Please, consider this opportunity.” She was not yet ready to concede failure. “Stefan can be an ally. My father spent the last months of his life with him, imparting a greater vision and sharing all he knew. My son wants to cease these hostilities between our realms—”
“Hostilities he started—”
“Yes. He recognizes that he was unfair. That is why he is making this extraordinary move. He is asking that you put your hard feelings behind you, and he will do the same with his.”
“He accused me—in the Archhalia—of murdering your father!”
Just as it had in Sordan two weeks ago, his pain at that accusation slammed against her nerves. “He will withdraw the charge—”
“—and my kindred! He is seeking my arrest. Maybe my execution.” He stabbed at his food. Anger. So much anger. The world itself might not be vast enough to hold it.
“He wants neither! If you will meet with him—”
“Only if we meet with swords in hand.”
Every encounter with Dorilian meant having to overcome his formidable hostility. Emyli steeled herself. Her father had shown that it was possible.
“You read the letter. Both letters. Stefan is willing. He wants peace and to keep his grandfather’s vision. The accusation withdrawn and promises of cooperation given. Permephedon is the only city where such a meeting would be possible. He promises your safety and freedom. I will do the same.”
His gaze bored into hers, asking if he could believe her. The gulf of distrust between their families was deep. Just because her father had bridged that gulf did not mean it had ceased to exist. Dorilian had reason to be wary. Betrayals had hardened him—but too many deaths had also left him in need of allies. Of peace. Emyli knew herself guilty of playing on those needs. She would have been ashamed had the stakes been less high.
I am contending for my son’s survival.
“You hate me less than he does.” Dorilian had finished eating.
“Stefan doesn’t hate you, he—” Fears you. She squelched thought and words alike before either could fully form.
Dorilian rose and she closed her eyes, following the sharp reports of his boot heels on marble as he walked to her side. She placed her hands upon the edge of the table, where he could see them. His paranoia about assassins kept him from ever coming near people he did not know or trust. He was always armed, always dangerous. This was a youth who had, on the day of his father’s death and while nursing grievous wounds of his own, drawn a sword and hewn off his wife’s head. He had not yet, to Emyli’s knowledge, expressed remorse for that act.
She inhaled sharply when he circled behind her and placed his hands on the arms of her chair. He leaned his face beside hers, his voice resonant in her ear. His breath delivered a familiar scent to her, costly and warm, all spice and resin. “I know the real reason you’re here. You don’t care about your father’s legacy, or the wasted lives of dead men. I told you in Sordan that your father’s Rill treaty has no chance in this hell or any other of being resurrected. You are here because in your maternal delusion you think you can persuade me to help your son, show support for him, do the very things I have refused to do for years.” Her eyes flew open and she turned, looking at him eye to eye. Amusement tugged at one corner of his mouth, mocking her. “Don’t deny it. My mother would do the same for me had our enemies not murdered her.”
Emyli drew a ragged breath. He couched everything in violence and death. “Why, if you love my father’s memory, can you not stay true to what he thought you to be?”
Dorilian stepped away. “I told you I would be the antithesis of that.”
“How, when I remember? When other men will?”
He frowned. “What do you want of me? How can I be your son’s savior? I cannot even be his friend!”
“Perhaps not. But you can be my father’s.”
She held his stare. Held it and would not let it go, because if she did, she would lose him. Lose the spark of naked emotion she glimpsed still burning beneath his cold facade, lose the battle in which she had engaged him, trapped between the desperate want of his need to remain true to her father and his desire to distance himself, as far as possible, from this city and her son.
He broke gaze first and walked to the door. The audience was over.
“Go back to your son, Princess. Tell Stefan he will have my answer in the morning.”
2
“As far as I’m concerned, this City’s only laudable use is as a repository for corpses.” Dorilian had never liked Permephedon. A symbol of his oppression in youth, now the City reminded him only of pain, of death. Legon, his new Commander of the Eagle Guard, knew better than to challenge his opinion. Together they entered the massive, wide-open, bronze doors into the Redoubt, the heart of the City’s many-towered Citadel. Just being in the soaring, unworldly building again made Dorilian’s skin crawl.
The Redoubt split. The Arcana was destroyed. I was there, I saw it crumble and burn around me. But now the Citadel looks perfect, as if the Demise never happened.
“You honored your dead. I don’t see why you are giving Stefan a chance to add you to their number.” Legon disagreed with this venture and that he could not wear a sword. He strode beside Dorilian with the alert tension of a fighting hound. “Last time you and he were here together, he kicked in your face.”
“I have not forgotten.”
“What if he has soldiers?”
“There are no soldiers in the Redoubt. The City is neutral ground. Its Law forbids them.”
Dorilian had specifically chosen Legon for this mission. Not only did his friend make an excellent bodyguard, with or without a sword, but Legon looked completely at home among throngs of similarly fair-haired, well-favored males of high Staubaun caste. Even when dressed in noble attire, Dorilian barely passed as Staubaun. Because Permephedon was seat of the Triemperal Archhalia and hosted people from many lands, he attracted little notice.
A group of darker-haired visitors walked by, laughing and shoving. One man lurched off-balance and Dorilian flinched. The men in the Arcana that day—poisoned, dying—had staggered upon trying to stand. Stumbled and fallen. These men reminded him of Khelds… of…
Marc. Clinging to a broken floor, refusing to take his hand. Why hadn’t Marc Frederick tried?
Dorilian blinked away the sting of memory. The haunting pangs of grief never stopped. Some days he barely kept it at bay. Nights… his nights were lost to horrors. And last night after seeing Emyli, he had broken out in a rage, throwing things and cursing and terrifying his staff.
Because he had made that promise.
Written in his blood, bathed with tears, and sealed within a finger bone threaded on a cord braided of his shorn hair. Dorilian’s death gift to the man for whom he would gladly have traded his life. For whom he still would—if only that were possible.
That Dorilian was here, attempting the unthinkable in the very building where he had lost so much, was some manner of madness.
Several white-garbed Upholders of the Undying stood outside the entrance to the Hall of Harmonies, where on the morrow Stefan would be crowned as Essera’s king. The Upholders, named for the one they served, were not undying themselves. When four stepped forward to bar his way, Dorilian summoned an orbus to fill his left hand with light and angled his fingers to show the green flash of the Rill Stone that marked him as Hierarch. To a man, they bowed deeply and let him pass. They could do nothing else. To so much as touch a Highborn prince without permission was a crime.
Being Sordaneon still meant something—everything—if only to a dwindling few. Permephedon had not yet fallen to Stefan’s heresy.
From information gathered earlier, Dorilian knew he would find Stefan in one of the vaulted hall’s side chambers, being fitted for his coronation robes. There was another entrance to the room, but Dorilian had preferred his chances of getting past the Upholders. He’d assigned Tutto to secure the other option, should Stefan prove false.
At his side, Legon assumed the aspect of a man ready to do battle.
I hope you are watching, Dorilian addressed Marc Frederick’s memory. Because I am honoring your thrice-cursed wishes.
Immediately upon entering, he noted that Stefan was not alone. A dozen men, a mix of Staubaun and Kheld courtiers, gathered in attendance to Essera’s king. Stefan stood on a platform at the far end of the room, his body draped in sumptuous velvet and heavy silk, half-finished garments aglitter with gold thread and stitched-on jewels, being fussed over by a tailor. He looked incongruous—ill at ease and quite unlike his regal grandfather.
The room’s chatter fell silent upon Dorilian’s entrance. Dorilian was used to that.
“Stefan.” He used the familiar name to preclude any assumption he thought Stefan merited a title. “You said you wanted to talk.”
Stefan blew out a sigh and pretended to listen as Robdan Aelfricson, secretary to his First Minister, recited a list of persons, noble and otherwise, who would be at the next day’s ceremony. The Citadel’s Harmonic Hall in which Stefan was to be crowned could hold a lot of people—half a nation it seemed, but not a whole one. None of the names meant a thing to him.
“Can you get a list to me tonight, with notes? I’ll go over them then.” Stefan didn’t want to reveal in front of his courtiers that he was still largely unsure which noble families merited his personal attention. He would ask Erenor Tholeros, whom he had just elevated to be his Commander of the Guard, about any names on the list.
Robdan bobbed his head and closed the ledger, which he tucked into his waistband like a common street scribbler. Stefan saw a couple of his courtiers roll their eyes. His cheeks burned at the implied rebuke. His Staubaun subjects were forever judging any Kheld attached to his household, even Goff Horvadson, an influential clan chieftain and now First Minister. They judged Stefan too.
Because I look like a Kheld.
A stir at the room’s entrance caught Stefan’s eye and he turned toward it, twisting the cloth in the tailor’s hands. Muttering about a pin, the man jammed an index finger into his mouth. Sordaneon, someone said. The name died on each tongue that spoke it.
Every head in the room, including the tailor’s, whipped around like that of a deer surprised in a clearing.
“Stefan. You said you wanted to talk.”
The bastard had actually come. Arrogant and an idiot. Stefan had never dreamed his ploy would succeed. He had written that note to Dorilian at his mother’s urging. He’d even included a promise he didn’t mean, because he had believed Dorilian would never set foot outside his armed camp of a tower. Yet here he was, to all appearances unarmed. Beside him stood another youth Stefan remembered from their brief schooling together.
“I expected you to send a response.”
“Oh, I think this counts.”
Of course it did. The impact of Dorilian’s arrival showed in the nervous stares of Stefan’s Staubaun courtiers. Uncertainty and hostile glances prevailed among Stefan’s Kheld kinsmen. Though Goff looked eager to start a fight, Robdan’s homely features displayed open alarm. Cullen, Stefan’s best friend and someone else who knew Dorilian well, shot him a wild look of warning. Just having his rival in the same room—Highborn, Rill-bound, a murderer—power and portents didn’t merely swirl about Dorilian, they clung to him like weapons.
Stefan needed to master this moment. Better yet would be if he could master his adversary.
But how? Dorilian stood before Stefan under protection of Permephedon’s neutrality. No soldiers. No swords.
Several courtiers dropped to one knee , bowed their heads, and made the gesture of The Three: arms crossed over their breasts and hands on their shoulders. A posture that could only be called submissive. Stefan swore under his breath. Staubauns by and large still worshipped the Sordaneons as godborn. Well, he didn’t—and neither did the Khelds. They and a handful of the Staubauns remained standing.
“How did you get past the guards?” A few of the kneeling men detected the tone of Stefan’s challenge and, seeing how others had not followed suit, unfolded their arms and rose back to their feet.
Dorilian lifted his left hand. The ring that sheathed the lower portion of his third finger gleamed brilliant emerald. “I am Highborn and I wear the Rill Stone. I am bound to one of the Three. Triemperal Law dictates I may come and go as I please.”
“Not anymore.” Stefan frowned. “I’m going to change things.”
“Why? Because you haven’t done enough damage already?”
“Not as much as you.”
Dorilian’s eyes narrowed. “I see my coming here was a mistake. I thought you meant what you wrote.”
“I did.”
“But words fail you now?”
Dorilian always had this effect on Stefan. Disdain radiated from the Highborn prince as a kind of malignant energy. Marc Frederick, Emyli, and even the Malyrdeons had tried to teach Stefan that projective empathy was something he could mitigate, had shown him strategies to keep himself from responding in kind—but it wasn’t working. Stefan didn’t see why he should have to be the one who made the effort.
“This isn’t the place.” The upper hand he needed was nowhere to be seen. He had thought that, if anything, Dorilian would attend the coronation itself. “We need to have a discussion about our positions. I’m to be king, and—”
“And I’d like to see him try to stop you!” Goff stepped forward, chest thrust out and fists cocked.
Dorilian simply stared, then directed a withering eye roll to Stefan. “Are all your kinfolk this embarrassingly stupid?”
Goff’s outburst might have irritated Stefan more had he not welcomed the show of defiance. Dorilian’s Hierarchate was important—and the Rill was vital. Not a domain in Essera, save Amallar, stood ready to abandon it. Much as Stefan hated to admit it, Marc Frederick had been right about the dangers inherent in the festering wounds between his and Dorilian’s families. Though Marc Frederick had found those dangers worth wading into, Stefan simply wished Dorilian would go somewhere and rot.
“Like I’ve been trying to tell you, now isn’t a good time for this.” Stefan walked toward the windows and more privacy. As he had hoped, Dorilian followed, along with the Sordani youth—Legon, he remembered—and Erenor.
“Make time. Or could it be you don’t really want me at your coronation?”
Stefan snapped a sharp look because it was true. He didn’t want Dorilian present at his moment of triumph. Marc Frederick had wanted it. His letter had been emphatic on that point. As for talks—did Stefan want to enter talks, of any kind, with this dangerous Highborn prick? Even if they could manage it, if they danced around the truth and never discussed what had happened on the day the ruling princes in Essera had died, could they ever reach agreement? On anything?
Stefan drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “If we talk, I’m going to need some hard answers.”
“I may not have them.”
“Oh, I think you do.”
Everyone in the room watched Stefan the way they used to watch his grandfather. Expecting action, decision. Expecting him to make something happen. Once he was crowned tomorrow, his power would be secure—except for this man. This one man. An enemy Stefan could remove from his path right now, right here, if he handled this situation forcefully. Marc Frederick’s letter had provided a golden, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Instinct, however, warned him to be careful.
Dorilian too had grown cautious. “Before we talk about anything, I require you to withdraw your accusations about me.”
“It might be best if we set a meeting place first.”
Stefan forced his expression to remain calm. A few more of Goff’s fellow clan heads had entered the room. Good. Stefan had more men. But his Staubaun nobles were looking alarmed, and Erenor ill at ease.
“Why not Stauberg?” Another Kheld chief, Lowen Toboldson, boldly put forth his choice.
“They don’t learn very quickly, do they?” Dorilian snapped.
Stefan flushed. He shot a glare at Goff, entreating him to control the Khelds a bit longer. To Dorilian, he offered an explanation. “They loved my grandfather. And they’re not the only ones who think you killed him—and all our kin who died in that slaughter—our best, our brightest—”
