Once the table was set, they withdrew into the house, leaving the door open behind them. The Baroness Marchon came out a moment later. She was tall and athletic, with long dark hair drawn back in a braid and a wicked smile I knew well. She had a little gryphinx perched on her shoulder.
“Aral”—she sat down at the table—“come, sit down. Talk to me.”
I let the shadow covering Triss had provided fall away, then crossed the marble tiles to take the second seat. A dragon’s shadow curled up in the third and was soon joined by Bontrang. Maylien poured me a small glass of Kyle’s, an eighteen and cask-strength. Triss made a tsking noise but didn’t insert himself any further into the conversation. He approved of Maylien if not the drink.
“It’s good to see you,” I said.
“You, too; I’m glad you agreed to come this time. You haven’t answered my last couple of invites.”
“I’ve been out of town, trying to find out more about the risen and when your sister might have succumbed to the curse. That satisfies curiosity and necessity both since I’m trying to lie low at the moment. I’m going to have trouble with Fei sooner or later, and I figure if I keep myself out of her sight as much as possible, that will help. Besides, Heyin was here, and I know it gives him hives when you see me, so waiting for him to return to Marchon seemed prudent.”
“You might have a point there.” Maylien nodded. “Speaking of Fei and curiosity, there’s something I’ve been wondering about the good captain.”
“What’s that?”
“Why was she so willing to cut a deal? She works for the king, and you’re pretty much at the top of his most-wanted list.”
“She doesn’t actually,” I said.
“What?”
“Work for Thauvik. Fei works for Fei first and Tien second. The king and the law don’t even enter into it. Besides, she owed me one.”
“You just lost me again.”
“That poison dart Devin had prepped. It was for Fei, in case Sumey was revealed and Sumey and Deem couldn’t get Fei to play ball. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what it was for.”
“But Fei didn’t know about the dart, not when we first started talking deal anyway.”
“No, but she knew by then what Sumey was and that she had owned both Deem and Devin. It’s not a long jump from there to realizing that Fei’s own survival odds went way up when things came out as they did. Even if Fei’d agreed to a deal with Sumey, she’d have had a target on her back afterward, and she knew that. Also, you’ll note, I made a point to mention the dart later.”
“Well, maybe.” She shrugged. “While you were away, did you find out anything more about Sumey’s plans?”
“Her plans, no. But I’ve learned more about the risen than I ever wanted to, and I know how she managed to keep herself looking healthy and normal all this time. Remember that big marble tub in that torture chamber in Marchon?”
“That was really creepy.”
“More than you know. She used it for bathing. In blood. Apparently, the blood of the living can keep the risen from decaying if it’s good and fresh and they soak in it often enough. It’s how she kept her looks and her mind.”
“That’s horrible.”
I nodded. “What about you? Have you found anything here at the house?”
Maylien nodded and lifted the cover on one of the larger plates. There was a narrow scroll on it.
“This was in a stone casket inside a hidden vault in the wine cellar. It was behind a rack of my mother’s favorite reds. There were some other things in there that made it pretty clear Sumey has been using it in the years since my mother died, so she knew about it.”
“What is it?”
Maylien looked away from me. “It’s a proclamation legitimizing Sumey and me. Ashvik made the two of us his legal heirs. Now that I’ve reclaimed my birthright by taking Marchon, that document means that the throne ought to have gone to me. It’s dated a few days before you killed Ashvik, and I suspect that its existence is why my mother sent us into hiding. She didn’t want us to follow our half brothers to the headsman’s block. I think the real reason Sumey hired Devin was to help her kill Thauvik and make her Queen of Zhan.”
I whistled. “That would certainly explain a few things.”
Maylien didn’t say anything, and I realized there were tears on her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Do you remember that first night we spent together, sleeping by the campfire? When Heyin interrupted us in the morning.”
“Of course. What about it?”
“Do you remember all those things I said about why I had to oust Sumey? About how every horrible thing Sumey did was my responsibility because the barony was mine by right?”
“I do.”
She was crying openly now. “It’s all still true with Thauvik. My uncle is a bad man and a bad king. Not as awful as my sister or my father, to be sure, but not good, and he’s getting worse all the time. And every damned evil thing he does is being done from a throne that was supposed to go to me.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I have to take the throne or accept all the evil my uncle does as my own.” Now she looked up and met my eyes and there was steel in her gaze. “I don’t want to have to do this, but I have no choice. Will you help me remove Thauvik from the throne?”
I have to admit that I thought about it. The temptation I’d experienced at Sumey’s keep was still there. The temptation to let Maylien take the place of Namara as my personal goddess, to become an instrument for someone else’s hand and let her make all the hard decisions. But I’d only just started to find out who Aral the jack could be. Who
I
could be if I let the Kingslayer go and became my own man once and for all.
I couldn’t let myself be drawn into Maylien’s sphere. Not yet. Maybe not ever. It’d be almost as bad for me as crawling into the bottle of Kyle’s sitting there on the table and pulling the cork in behind me once again.
“No,” I said. “I won’t. I just . . . can’t. Not as I am now.” I was Aral the jack now; Aral Kingslayer was as dead as the goddess that made him, and I needed to finally bury my dead. “I’m sorry. Triss, come on. We’re going.”
Maylien didn’t say another word. Not until I’d reached the edge of the balcony.
“Aral?” Her voice was low, quiet, hurting.
“Yes.” I didn’t turn back, but I did stop. I owed her that for helping me put my feet on the right path once again.
“I’m sorry, too. I thought that would be your answer, but I had to ask.” Her voice dropped even lower. “You do understand, don’t you?”
I nodded. “I know you did.”
“I have one more thing I have to ask you.”
“What is it?” I said through a throat gone suddenly tight. I didn’t know what she wanted, but I knew from the sound of her voice that I wasn’t going to like it.
“I know you won’t kill my uncle for me, and I don’t blame you. Truly, I don’t. This isn’t your fight. But I
will
be queen someday.” She said that hard and fast, and I knew she meant it. “I have no other choice, but it terrifies me, too. What if it’s the power that does this to my family? What if I’m going to become my sister all over again, or worse, my father? Not the risen part—there’s been no evidence of the curse since I burned out the wound—but the slow slide into evil.” She paused, and I could tell that she was crying again. “I think you love me, at least a little.”
“I do.” That’s more than half of the reason I had to leave her now, because loving her would make it that much easier to give myself into her keeping. To surrender the chance to find out what I could be on my own.
“Good. Because I want you to do something for me.” Her voice changed again, becoming firm, almost cold. The voice of the queen to come. “If I become a monster, I want you to kill me. I won’t live like that, and you’re the only one who can stop me. Will you promise to do that for me?”
“Yes.” And now I was the one who was crying.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t say “you’re welcome,” and I didn’t look back, just jumped over the railing and glided to the ground. Then I walked home to the Gryphon and asked Jerik to get me a glass of Kyle’s. A glass. Not a bottle. I couldn’t kill another king for Maylien. That was still beyond me. But maybe, just maybe, I could do a little good here and there, save a life, rescue a hostage, stop a robbery. Bring a little justice to the world. Find out who Aral the jack really was. And if I wanted to do any of that, I had to be sober.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Terms and Characters
Alinthide Poisonhand—
A master Blade, the third to die making an attempt on Ashvik VI.
Alley-Knocker—
An illegal bar or cafe.
Anaryan, Earl of—
A Zhani noble.
Anyang—
Zhani city on the southern coast. Home of the winter palace.
Aral Kingslayer—
Ex-Blade turned jack of the shadow trades.
Ashelia—
A smuggler.
Ashvik VI
or
Ashvik Dan Pridu—
Late king of Tien, executed by Aral. Also known as the Butcher of Kadesh.
Athera Trinity—
The three-faced goddess of fate.
Balor Lifending—
God of the dead and the next Emperor of Heaven.
Black Jack—
A professional killer or assassin.
Blade—
Temple assassin of the goddess Namara.
Bontrang—
A miniature gryphon.
Calren the Taleteller—
God of beginnings and first Emperor of Heaven.
Caras Dust—
Powerful magically bred stimulant.
Caras Snuffler—
A caras addict.
Cat’s Gratitude—
An alley-knocker in Little Varya.
Channary Canal—
Canal running from the base of the Channary Hill to the Zien River in Tien.
Channary Hill—
One of the four great hills of Tien.
Chimney Forest—
The city above, rooftops, etc.
Chimney Road—
A path across the rooftops of a city. “Running the chimney road.”
Coals—
Particularly hot stolen goods.
Code Martial—
Ancient system of Zhani law predating the conquerors who make up the current noble class of Zhan.
Cornerbright—
Magical device for seeing around corners.
Crown Law—
Zhan’s modern legal system.
Dalridia—
Kingdom in the southern Hurnic Mountains.
Dead Man’s Purse, the—
An alley-knocker in Little Varya.
Deathspark—
A piece of magic that turns a human being into a trap triggered by his own death.
Deem, Colonel—
An officer of the Elite.
Devin Urslan—
A former Blade.
Downunders—
A bad neighborhood in Tien.
Dragon Crown—
The royal crown of Zhan, often replicated in insignia of Zhani crown agents.
Drum-Ringer—
A bell enchanted to prevent eavesdropping.
Dustmen—
Dealers in caras dust.
Eavesman—
A spy or eavesdropper.
Elite, the—
Zhani mages. They fulfill the roles of secret police and spy corps among other functions.
Emberman—
A professional arsonist.
Erk Endfast—
Owner of the Spinnerfish, ex–black jack, ex–shadow captain.
Everdark, the—
The home dimension of the Shades.
Eyespy—
A type of eavesdropping spell.
Face, Facing—
Identity. “I’d faced myself as an Aveni bravo.”
Fallback—
A safe house.
Familiar Gift—
The ability to soul-bond with another being, providing the focus half of the power/focus dichotomy necessary to become a mage.
Fire and sun!—
A Shade curse.