He grabbed up his sword, thrust it into the sheath on his belt, and uttered quick orders. “Call Captain Tyrolean from the temple and have horses brought round. I’ll need mourning attire—whatever is appropriate. Where is Halmar? He’s to take charge of the procession, and he must prepare it quickly. And send for Thom. I’ll be outside in a moment.”
His boots echoed on the tile of the hall as he strode for his quarters and something appropriate to wear. Seamstresses had been up day and night making him a wardrobe befitting a prince. He’d insisted on a bit of green on everything to show his loyalty to the Queen, but he had no idea if it would make any difference to Elena. With his body slave’s advice, he threw on red Brînian mourning attire, straightened Elena’s pendant, and tightened the straps of a back scabbard across his chest. As he headed for the courtyard entrance, Thom caught up with him, trotting to keep up.
“You called for me, Lord Prince?”
“Take word to my Escorts. Assemble one thousand servii to accompany me to Seakeep. They must be ready by the time the procession reaches the city gates.”
Thom sputtered in surprise. “A thousand…”
“Thom, do not mistake the will of my soldiers to achieve their Night Lord’s wishes. And I still am Night Lord.” He fingered the pendant as he waited impatiently for his horse.
“News of your urgency precedes you, my lord prince,” Tyrolean said, meeting him at the door to the courtyard. His forehead bore ash and blood from his prayers. “I know you mean to see to your father today. But there’s no rush. The dead will wait.”
“But the Queen will not. Nor I.” Draken strode out into the courtyard, ignoring Tyrolean’s perplexed stare. He stood waiting, tapping his fingers against his sword hilt. The horses arrived, gleaming creatures with every spot of white blacked out, and Thom followed, breathless.
“They’re clearing the way for the procession, my lord, and I sent word to your troops as you bid. But I’ll warn you, the streets are crowded. Word has spread you will appear today.”
“Let them look all they like,” Draken said as he climbed into the saddle. “I belong to them, after all.”
A short while later he rode through Brîn, marveling how his resolve had quickened his wishes into fruition. Brînian royal guards, Szi Nêre, came first, making sure the streets kept clear. Draken followed on horseback. Then Tyrolean in green, his narrowed eyes coursing across the crowd, seeking threat. Thom led his father’s horse, a skittish bay stallion.
The streets were so full they had to pause several times, during which Draken acknowledged the crowd. The throngs of Brînians did not cheer because this was a funeral procession, but most of them knelt or touched their chests and bowed, calling his name. Draken took the better part of the afternoon to reach the gates.
Once there, he paused for a moment to speak with a Horse Marshal from his own divisions of Akrasian servii. They waited for him, standing in ordered rows. A First Horse Marshal approached on horseback and touched his fist to his chest. “Night Lord.”
“You’re ready?”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Good. Give the order to make as little noise as possible. Today I lay my father, a Brînian Prince, the son of a King and descendent of Khellian, to rest. I would have proper respect from my troops.”
The Horse Marshal saluted him and started back to his waiting ranks.
The field had been washed clean of blood by Osias’ flood, though the grass was trampled. Fires burned amid the many tents housing the Escorts, and servii rose and saluted as the procession passed. Draken breathed in the familiar camp scents. Cooking fires and unwashed bodies.
They came to a halt just inside Seakeep’s gateless opening and waited. Elena could not have missed the procession headed her way: two hundred Szi Nêre all in black cloaks followed by one thousand green-clad Akrasian servii.
A harried Akrasian officer approached. Her tunic bore Elena’s sigil, cut with three stripes. “I am Oroli,” she said. “Lord Marshal to Queen Elena. She’ll be along presently, Lord Draken, if you’ll wait for her in the throne room.”
Draken dismounted and saluted her. A challenge, to determine where the winds blew as to his Night Lord-hood. Tyrolean, too, saluted. Oroli hesitated, and then saluted them back. “If you’ll just follow me, Night Lord, Captain,” she said.
“I’ll wait for you here, Night Lord,” Tyrolean said, so Draken climbed the stairs alone.
He examined the stone floor and the tapestries on the walls. He recognized them as Brînian, though the Akrasian Crown held rights over Seakeep—for good, as far as he was concerned. For several moments he avoided the low platform in the center of the room, where the wrapped body of his father rested. Finally he walked toward it and stood for several moments, staring down at the white-draped form. A moonwrought circlet bound the cloth to his head. It was inscribed in Brînish and set with stones, gray as the sea.
Draken’s eyes remained mercifully dry, though his heart was in turmoil. He tortured me. The bastard deserved to die, he told himself fiercely.
He lowered his head.
How many people had Draken lost to the Mance King? His father had gone first, certainly, perhaps never quite himself while in service to a monster. What sort of man might he have been without the Mance King’s influence? Draken would never know.
“I hope you approve of his treatment,” Queen Elena said.
Draken turned, surprised by her voice, and then knelt on one knee, trying to be unobtrusive about looking at her. She looked subdued, he thought, and pale. In fact, she did look a little ill.
“He wasn’t a good man, but he was Prince,” he said. “This seems appropriate.”
She studied him while he stared past her, waiting, trying to find the right balance between respect and ease. Her gaze came to rest somewhere near the new hoops in his left ear.
“Rise,” she said.
He swallowed, found his voice. “Are you well, Your Majesty?”
“Well enough, Draken.”
He glanced down and then back up, searching for something to say. She didn’t seem ready to help him with it. “Thank you for offering Tyrolean’s service to me.”
“He may stay with you as long as he likes and return to me at his leisure.”
Draken could make out nothing from her expression. She was immobile, stoic. Something in him ached deeply for a moment, and then passed, leaving a familiar, unnamable emptiness. He nodded. “Well, it means a fair lot to me, my Queen.”
Before he could think what else to say she spoke quietly. “I hoped you would come to me before this.”
“You only need ask,” he said, confused. She was Queen. She did the asking, not him.
“You’ve been quite busy, and even now we spend your time as if you’ve all day.” Clearly a dismissal.
Entirely perplexed now—she had requested he come see her, after all—Draken took a moment before answering. “My main duty today is my father’s funeral, though I’ve one other matter. I want to return Seaborn to Akrasian keeping.” He drew the sword and laid it at her feet, taking a knee again as he did so. This time he stayed down, tensing at her sharp intake of breath.
Moments passed. Draken didn’t lift his head.
She grasped the sword and held out the hilt to him. “It belongs in Brîn. I like to think my father was more its temporary warden, to keep yours from gaining too much power.”
“Your father killed my family with it,” Draken murmured. He hadn’t known them, never had the chance.
“They were going to die anyway. My father knew the Mance King better than any of us. He knew the treaty between the Mance and Akrasia was a lie. He knew Truls’ true alliance lay with the House of Khel.”
“And you knew, too?”
“Not all, but I suspected someone close had betrayed me. It’s why I pretended to scoff at tales of the banes when you brought word of them.” She stared at him unblinking. “Do you recall my questioning Prince Osias about our treaty?”
Draken’s eyes widened in realization. “You were testing him, to see if he could be trusted.”
“A wise man, my father. He taught me well. I think you would have respected him, even liked him.” She paused and looked at the dead Prince. “I did believe you had been attacked by a bane. And why would Truls attack you if you were in league with him? He hated you, spurned you at every turn. Even Geord did, and it was real enough, I thought. I gave the sword to you because I hoped…” Her smile was faint, but it was a smile. “You do look quite like your father, you know. No mistaking it once the idea occurred.”
“I know,” he said grimly. He slipped the sword back into its scabbard, hoping it was for the last time. “I’d like to call my guards now and lay him to rest.”
Brînian Royal Guards lifted his father’s body and carefully made their way down the steps. Draken and Elena followed, joined by Aarinnaie and Tyrolean. They walked past the rows of Escorts at attention, fists to chests, to the seaward wall.
“Your leave, my lord?” Halmar asked softly.
Draken nodded. “You knew him best.”
Halmar silently lifted his father’s body and brought him to Draken. Elena removed the crown from his father’s head. Then Halmar, dwarfing their father’s body, dropped him over the wall into the sea. The white shrouded form hung on the top of the water. Just as Draken thought he couldn’t bear a moment more, a Priest of Khellian began to pray and a wave swept over it, sucking it down. It did not reappear. He couldn’t listen, but closed his eyes and concentrated on his own prayers. Grant him peace in death, Ma’Vanni. He never had it in life.
Elena turned to him.
“Kneel, Draken of Brîn,” she said brusquely.
Draken knelt before her, bewildered.
“We mustn’t let time linger until succession, lest someone betray Brîn in your absence. As such, I declare you from this day forward Prince of Brîn.”
He looked up in shock as she pressed his father’s circlet down over his head. The wide metal band felt cold against the burned skin on his forehead. “As well, Prince Draken, I claim you my ally and equal in the eyes of the gods and our lieges. Rise, and kneel to me no more.”
He stared up at her, rising slowly to his feet.
“I’ve been preparing a celebratory banquet these few days,” Elena said smoothly. “I hope you will join us before you continue your revelry in Brîn tonight? I imagine the Brînians are fair ready for a celebration, since Sohalia was interrupted.”
Draken shook his head and resisted the urge to touch the crown on his head. “Will you walk with me for a moment, Queen Elena?”
“If you wish.” Her smile flickered again and he inwardly cursed the hope it flared in his heart.
The others dispersed for the banquet hall as Elena led the way along the low wall. Escorts snapped to attention as they passed, but Draken concentrated on the sea. Winds from the bay tugged at his cloak. The circlet rested snugly against his forehead, but not uncomfortably so.
Elena’s quiet voice broke into his thoughts. “Tyrolean respects you a great deal.”
Draken put his hands behind his back. “Does it surprise you we’ve become friends?”
“A little. He is very traditional, faithful.”
Draken thought of Tyrolean kneeling to the goddess Zozia in the temple at Auwaer. How they’d loathed each other then and how far they’d come since. “He was in the temple all morning. He didn’t say it, but I know he prays for my wisdom.”
“As he prays for mine,” Elena said. “But he needn’t worry over you. Even my own Escorts call you The Prince of the Gods.”
Was it anger he detected? Or sarcasm? Not the latter, likely; irony didn’t have much place in Akrasian culture. The waters below slid against the cliff, peaceful and glistening in the sun. He stared down, trying not to think of his father’s body twisting with the tides, sinking to the floor of the bay.
“Have I done something to displease you, Elena?” Draken asked. He could almost hear Bruche’s imagined snort:
Beyond killing you, that is.
“You? No. You please everyone.”
“I am your Night Lord. It reflects well upon you.”
“I can’t keep a Brînian Prince for Night Lord.” As if it were the simplest matter in the world. She did not look at the pendant. “I can use the position to win loyalty again, as I did with you.”
That stung. “I want to remain your Night Lord. I don’t care what it means politically.”
“Why?”
“I’ve not done right by you. I never wanted to hurt you.” Or more to the point, kill you and pray the sword might once again do what it had done for Urian. But he could not make himself say it. “I’d rather hoped...once this confusion was past, we might be…” Fools all, this was awkward. “...close,” he said, desperately trying not to sound desperate.
“We’re close allies, Draken, which is a vast improvement over previous conditions. But you are Prince of Brîn and I am Queen…”
“Of all Akrasia, and the seas beyond,” he finished softly.
Her smile was curt. “I suspect it will not be for long. The people love you over me.”
This wasn’t going well at all. Draken thought for a moment, reflecting on her last statement. “And you? What do you think?”
She spoke in measured tones. “I do not resent their love for you, if it’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not.”
She said nothing but looked away from him, out to sea.
“Gods, look, I’m terribly sorry, Elena. I never wanted things to be like this between us. You don’t know what it did to me to—” He stopped and swallowed, forced his unwilling voice to go on. “To kill you. Truth, I think of little else. Whatever you think of me, when I took this pendant, I did not believe I could harm you for all the world. I didn’t believe it until I actually did it.”
“King Osias came to see me,” Elena said, so softly he had to lean closer to hear. “Odd how one is so inclined to confide in him.”
“Aye,” he agreed. He chided himself for feeling at a loss. Osias hadn’t said he’d been to visit Elena, but he hardly answered to Draken. “He’s gone to Eidola, for now.”
She nodded and they were quiet for a while, Draken feeling more and more uneasy. He was just thinking on how they could make their way to the feast without offending her further when she turned to look at him.
Draken shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his bare chest, uncrossing them just as quick. He’d apologized and now he had to find out what he’d really done to her. Fair atonement for killing someone he’d sworn to protect.