Empire of Dust (19 page)

“Me?” he repeats, jerking his arm so a bit of wine sloshes out of his overfull cup.

“We only had one night together. But it meant so much to me. Again and again I told myself I would get out of that prison. And then I would have another chance with you. It's what helped me survive.”

She thought of him in the prison. Memories of him helped her survive.
An image of Kat flashes through his mind, red-faced and blotchy, upset by his kiss. He looks now at Cyn, her eyes shining with desire, her smile playful. He should put the wine cup down and go to bed. Alone.

Why can Heph never seem to stop himself from doing something he knows he shouldn't? As he ponders the question, he raises the cup to his lips and drinks.

* * *

Heph sits up in the lumpy bed as waves of nausea pour over him. He's going to be sick, and soon. He scrambles over Cynane, searches desperately for his tunic on the floor, throws it over his head and, with one hand clenched over his mouth, races across the courtyard toward the latrines. There, in the reeking stench, he empties his guts repeatedly. Each time he thinks he's ready to leave the foul place, his insides twist again, sending everything upward. Finally he staggers into the courtyard, the night air cool on his sweat-soaked skin.

He didn't drink all that much. Just enough for a headache the next morning. This is something different. Was there something wrong with the duck? It smelled and tasted fine.

A short scream pierces the silence. He turns toward it, unsure if he should get involved. Is someone having a nightmare? Has a woman gone into labor? It slices through the night again, and this time it sounds like Kat, and it came from the second floor. He doesn't have time to retrieve his sword so he staggers upstairs and clatters down the long balcony. All the doors are shut. Which room is Kat's? He listens. Something falls to the ground. He throws open a door. In a room dimly lit by the glow of a lantern he sees two figures struggling. Cyn is holding a long, serrated knife, and Kat's hands are clenched around Cyn's wrists, pushing them away from her.

“Stop it!” Heph says, the room tilting and blurring as he races toward them and pulls Cyn off of Kat. “What are you doing?” He wrenches the knife from Cyn's hand and she bends over, her hands on her knees.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I had to do it. Olympias wants her dead.” She looks up, imploringly. “When she learned Alex was sending me to find you two, she took me aside and threatened me. I didn't want to do it, but I don't want to die. You know the queen is evil and will make good on her threat, don't you?”

Heph looks at Kat. Her mouth is a hard line, her arms rigid at her side. She can't take her eyes off Cynane.

“Heph,” Cyn says, standing up straight. “You've known me all these years. We grew up together. You've known Kat for a few weeks. You and I have made love, twice, now. Surely that must mean something to you. You must believe me.”

Heph glances at Kat, whose face has closed up like a tightly rolled scroll.

“You're not going to choose her over me, are you?” Cyn asks, taking a step toward Kat and gesturing. “She's nothing to you.”

“You should have told us, Cyn, about the queen's threat,” Heph says, choosing each word carefully, though every part of him would like to threaten her with her own knife. Threaten, but not kill. He knows he could never willingly hurt her—they grew up together—but he'd like her to think he might. “We could have come up with a plan to keep you safe,” he goes on, keeping his voice steady, even as he continues to bite back the foul taste of bile and old wine still lingering in the back of his throat. “We could have hidden you outside Pella while we talked to Alex about dealing with Olympias. But now, we can't trust you. If you choose to stay with us we will have to keep you bound day and night.”

“Heph, please,” Cyn says, her voice cracking. She bends forward again, as if she can't get her breath. Then she grabs the low chair beside her and throws it—hard—at Heph. He is so surprised he doesn't raise his arms to protect himself as quickly as he should, and it hits him in the temple with a horrible crack. Lights explode behind his eyes and pain radiates through his skull as he falls to the floor.

He needs to get up. Cyn is going to try to hurt Kat.

When he pushes himself into a kneeling position, he sees, in the middle of a wildly spinning room, the writhing shadows in the lantern light of two girls fighting. In a blur of motion Kat kicks Cyn in the abdomen and, as Cyn doubles over, punches her in the jaw. Howling in rage, Cyn throws Kat on the floor, straddling her. She raises a knife—he can see its razor-sharp blade glinting in the low light. As Heph cries “No!” and lurches toward them, Cyn brings it down toward Kat's throat.

But Kat has twisted to her left, and Cyn's blade comes down hard on her hand. Kat screams, the two scuffle, and Cyn raises the knife again. But now, Heph is behind her, violently dragging her away by her hair. She turns to slash at him but he yanks her arms hard behind her back, and the knife clatters to the floor. As he moves to grab it, Cyn breaks from his grasp and, laughing, bolts from the room. He would chase after her but sees Kat sitting stunned on the floor, blood gushing from her right hand, which she is clutching in her left.

“Let me see. Kat, let me see it,” he insists, kneeling beside her, gently forcing her to let go.

The entire fingertip of her right index finger is gone, the stump a raw, pulsating wound. Heph tries not to grimace. He's certainly seen far worse in battle and he knows Kat will heal if he helps clean the wound. But a sickening shame spikes through him and he almost throws up again. Cynane cut off Kat's finger. It's the horrible disgrace and humiliation of it that he can't quite believe. And, from the looks of it, he realizes while scanning the floor, she took the finger with her.

Why? For what foul purpose?

It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that
he
let this happen. It's all
his
fault. He can't believe his own passion has once again allowed a disaster to occur. He looks around the room in the darkness, panic ticking in his veins, filling him with a resounding sense of doom. He holds Kat tighter, ripping off part of his tunic to help stanch her wound. But he cannot look into her eyes.

Because if he can't trust in himself, who
can
he trust?

Chapter Eighteen

JACOB STANDS SHACKLED
in a small clearing in a kind of natural amphitheater, one side ringed by rock ledges, the others by trees and bushes. Seated on folding camp chairs in the center of the second ledge are the five members of the Inquisitorial Council, the group that judges members of the brotherhood who are accused of crimes.

High Lord Gideon is at the center. Jacob has the feeling his judgment may be harsh, but he will, at least, seek for justice. On his left is Bastian, his face a hard sneer, and Melchior, the Persian, who has always seemed to look down on Jacob for his peasant background. To Gideon's right are Aethon and Ambiorix, former peasants themselves, who have always been friendly.

His life rests in these men's hands.

Around them, other Lords sit cross-legged on the ground or let their long legs and black boots dangle over the sides. Some of them are already perspiring, for it is the time of day when men's shadows hide inside themselves, the time of golden heat and white light.

They are farther up the mountain from the old fortress of Pyrrhia, with guards posted in all directions to warn them of any invaders. High Lord Gideon is preparing for a Macedonian attack, Timaeus told Jacob when he visited him in his cell yesterday. Cynane has probably made it back to Pella and told Alexander about her capture and torture. The treaty that allowed the Lords to stay in Pyrrhia unmolested is no longer valid.

Tim also told Jacob that according to ancient tradition Aesarian Lords interrogate their own by sitting on boulders or rocks, in imitation of the primal spring of divine life, source of the Lords themselves, though neither he nor Jacob could make any sense of it.

Several feet away from him, Jacob's Aesarian armor—shield, helmet, leather pants, boots, breastplate, sword, and spear—lies in a heap. At the end of the trial he will either put it on again as a free man, or see it burned right before he is executed.

Lord Melchior rises from his chair, climbs down the ledges, and stands before Jacob. He unrolls the scroll and reads.

“The Inquisitorial Council of the Aesarian Lords does hereby charge the prisoner, Lord Jacob of Erissa, with several offenses, each one meriting death.” His rich voice cascades over the assembly with the delicate lilt of the east. Melchior makes even the word
death
sound oddly pleasant.

“Charge one: that he did collaborate with a prisoner to effect her escape from custody. Charge two: that he allowed a prisoner to escape with Aesarian secrets. Charge three: that he let loose foul magic into the world.”

As Melchior reads the charges, Jacob wonders how his life has gone downhill so fast. Just days ago he was on his way to becoming the best of the Aesarians, and now this. But one thing gives him strength. He's innocent. He didn't let Cynane escape. Sure, he thought about it. He even promised her he would. And who knows what he might have done if she had continued to beg and plead with him instead of attacking him? But he did not remove her chains.

At least...not intentionally. Over the past days in his dark cell, he relived the moment when heat rolled through him, from his hands into her chains, and the links melted and popped open.

Melchior looks up, his handsome chiseled face a mask of judicial impartiality. “Lord Jacob, how do you plead?”

Finally, this is his chance to speak, to explain. The first night in the filthy, pitch-black cell he yelled for someone to just listen to him until his voice was hoarse and his throat swollen and throbbing. Without watching the sun rise and night fall, he's lost track of time. The long stretches of thick black silence were broken only by guards bringing food and removing his slops bucket. When Jacob was arrested, High Lord Gideon had said the trial would be held in seven days, but it seems more like it's been seven weeks.

Then shortly after dawn this morning, Lords Aethon and Eumolpus hauled him out of the pit and into the light of a courtyard that almost blinded him. They led him up the spiral staircase to Cyn's old tower room with its arrow slit window, just wide enough to let in a ribbon of light. He pushed his face against the window, sucking in the light and fresh air as if they were a feast.

More delights awaited him: a bucket of well water for bathing—had he ever appreciated being clean before?—a laundered tunic, hearty food, and watered wine. When he asked Lord Aethon about this sudden bounty, the barrel-chested Lord replied that an Aesarian's appearance should not prejudice his brothers against him at his trial. It was the Aesarian way.

Now, standing in the bright light of a noontime sun, Jacob throws his shoulders back and lifts his chin. “I am innocent, my Lords.”

Melchior nods and returns to his spot on the ledge. High Lord Gideon rises, holding in his right hand the White Staff of Truth, an ancient ivory rod intricately carved with animals and human faces and topped by a jeering ivory skull. In an Inquisitorial Council, any Lord may speak as long as he holds the staff.

“Lord Jacob,” he says, “explain.”

Jacob clears his throat. “I did not let Princess Cynane go, High Lord. Magic brought about her escape.” That much is true.

Bastian springs up and takes the White Staff. “Lord Jacob is lying!” he says, his gaze sweeping across the dozens of faces turned to look at him. “We spent many days determining the princess did not possess magic. You let her go in return for...what? Riches and favor from Macedon, perhaps?”

Hatred floods Jacob's every fiber. Bastian, that sneering, arrogant scum who tried to kill Kat.

He had a long time in the dark to think about Cyn's story of the queen calling out to Riel in her secret altar. And the more he thought about it, the more likely it seems to him that the queen herself told Bastian about the god.

And Jacob can think of only two ways one could pry information from the queen: either Bastian had turned traitor—something that seems unlikely, for all that Jacob loathes him—or else he had some
sway
over Olympias.

Sway that only a lover could have.

And there was more, something else that told Jacob that Bastian was intimate with the enemy queen. In the courtyard, Bastian had spoken of the queen in the past tense, as if he thought she was dead when no one else did.

What if...what if...Bastian met with the queen after the battle? What if he even tried to kill her to cover up their affair once he got the information he wanted from her? Jacob doesn't have the necessary evidence, but the timing of events seems to line up. And yesterday Timaeus told Jacob that Aesarian spies in Pella reported that the queen had been missing and returned ill and strangely marked, as if by poison. Ever since he joined the Lords, Jacob heard rumors that Bastian has always been fond of poisons, concocting mixtures to make himself immune to many.

Lord Turshu rises and calls, “The staff, please.” Bastian reluctantly passes it down the line of seated men.

“Bastian speaks the truth that Princess Cynane did not possess Blood Magic,” Turshu says in the singsong cadence of Scythia. “However, we also determined that someone—or some
thing—
was protecting her. She was clearly under a powerful spell that healed her burned flesh and broken bones. If Lord Jacob was embalming her as we instructed him—and we found the hardened pieces of the ash mixture on the floor—it is also possible that the spell interrupted the embalmment and melted her chains.”

Jacob is glad to see many of the other Lords nodding at Turshu's sensible words and feels a warm surge of gratitude to the bowlegged little warrior for helping him yet again. The first time, when Jacob was cleaning the Pyrrhian stable, a spooked horse almost stomped him to death. Jacob saw flailing hooves sharp as knives trying to pummel him, and could only raise his arms above his head. A moment later Turshu was there, clucking and whistling in his strange, Scythian way, and the horse immediately calmed.

“The staff,” calls Timaeus, rising, and Turshu passes it down to the row of Lords sitting on the ledge below him. Jacob feels another little flush of relief. Timaeus, too, will support him.

Taking the staff, Timaeus says, “When we heard the disturbance, I ran into the embalming room before any of you and found Lord Jacob standing there in shock, his face a bloody mess, the chains gone but a strange smell in the air like molten iron. Surely those Lords that entered the room immediately after me noticed that smell, too.”

Jacob looks around the faces, and to his relief, he sees Gideon, Ambiorix, and several other Lords nod.

“If Lord Jacob had merely broken off her chains,” Tim continues, “why would the room smell of melted metal? Where did the chains go? We never found them.” Thankfulness surges through Jacob like the rich warmth of mulled wine after an icy day of hunting. In the cell, Timaeus said the chains went missing and winked quickly. Jacob isn't sure what his little friend did with them, but he trusts that they will never be found again.

“The White Staff!” Bastian calls. Timaeus, whose mouth was open to continue speaking, shrugs and passes it back up to Bastian. Jacob groans silently. Whatever Bastian has to say, it won't be favorable to him.

“She could not melt off her chains while we held her the past weeks,” Bastian points out. “Why then did she have the power to do so when she was alone with Jacob?”

That question has been bothering Jacob all during his long, dark imprisonment. The ludicrous thought that came to him in the moment before Timaeus burst through the door was exactly that: ludicrous. Impossible. Insane. He had pushed it into the furthest recesses of his mind. And even when another memory—a memory of red fire flaming from the Hemlock Torch as he held it—flickers into his mind, he always ended up shaking the idea away like a wet dog shaking off water.

Because...because if he were the one responsible for healing his arm at the palace, healing Katerina on the battlefield, making the torch go crimson, and melting the chains, it could mean only one thing: that he has what he has sworn as an Aesarian Lord to eradicate. That he is not a hunter of magic, but a bearer of it.

And the irony is too much to stomach.

“And how could a woman,” Bastian continues, “weak from hunger and torture, overpower an Aesarian Lord? Especially the
hero
of the Pellan palace break-in? The
victor
of the Blood Tournament?” Bastian feels he's winning. He's practically licking his chops. He reminds Jacob of the hyena that stole baby lambs and goats in Erissa. When he and Kat tracked it down, its maw was red with fresh blood and it seemed to be grinning at them insolently, daring them to stop him.

“No, my Lords, what we have here is not magic but treason. And the punishment of treason is death.”

Jacob knows that the scarred Lord wants him dead. If it wasn't clear before, it is clear now. Even if he survives this trial, Bastian will make sure he dies in a training accident or gets stabbed in an ambush.

It's Jacob or Bastian.

It has always been Jacob or Bastian.

Jacob inhales deeply. “There was magic, I assure you,” he says, trying to quell the notes of fast-paced, squeaky panic begging to slip in. “As I was stirring the mixture, the embalming ash I had already placed on the princess cracked and fell off. Her chains disappeared in a blaze of light, leaving that odd tang of metal lingering in the air that several of you smelled.”

He sees several faces nodding and continues as hope burns hard in his throat. “She stood before me, laughing at my surprise. I made ready to throw her to the ground, but then she told me something so shocking that I hesitated a few seconds. During that time she grabbed my pin and stabbed my face.” His hand touches the crusted scab on his cheek. “It was a scratch only, but... My Lords, it was her words that pained me far more than the wound.”

Silence descends as the Lords digest this. A warm wind ruffles the leaves of nearby trees, and the buzz of the cicadas rises and diminishes.

A laugh cracks the momentary peace. “What news did this
girl
tell you that shocked you so badly you weren't able to fight as an Aesarian?” Bastian scoffs.

Jacob's heart beats in his ears.
He's got him.

“Interesting that you, Lord Bastian, should be the one to ask,” Jacob says, loudly and clearly. Taking a deep breath, he's ready to take his fate into his hands. He's ready to guess at the truth. “She said that you are the lover of Queen Olympias of Macedon.”

Shouts of surprise echo across the rock ledges as council members sit up straighter and lean forward. Bastian's face is alight with feral anger. “Liar!” he says, pointing at Jacob with the White Staff. “Traitor!”

He turns to High Lord Gideon. “We must cleanse our brotherhood of this vermin. Allow me, High Lord, to execute him. Now.”

It's true.
Bastian's blind fury has erased the last shadow of doubt regarding Jacob's theory. As a hunter, Jacob has seen the spitting, snarling fury of a cornered animal. He's trained to know what an animal thinks. And all the signs are there in the panicked anger of the cornered animal called Bastian.

“My brothers,” Jacob says, drinking in Bastian's outrage as if it were the finest Chian wine, “have any of you noticed how often Lord Bastian has gone missing from our ranks with no explanation? Have any here received useful information from Bastian about the Pellan palace, yet wondered why he refused to tell you how he obtained it?”

High Lord Gideon stands, as Jacob knew he would, and takes the staff from Bastian. “I have.” His voice rolls out, muting the other whispers. “Ever since we entered Pella for the Blood Tournament, Lord Bastian has often gone missing from our meetings, training sessions, and even the bedroom he shared with Lords Melchior and Aethon.” Gideon reminds Jacob of a thunderhead, toweringly high, dark as night, ready to unleash its unfathomable fury.

“When I asked him about it, he replied that he was conducting reconnaissance into possible magic wielders in the palace. I did not question him further as his rank grants him some freedoms.”