'I know things, Prince Jehal. Things about the Taiytakei. Things you don't. They're not the friends you think they are.'
Jehal laughed. 'Poor Knight-Marshal.' He held out the cup one more time. 'Are you going to drink this or not?'
'Not.'
He nodded. 'It would have been a disappointment if you had. I don't suppose there's anything I could offer you that would make you betray your queen and bow your knee to me. To have someone of your abilities I would give a great deal. I'd have to know you meant it of course.'
Nastria simply stared at him. He knew that look. It was hatred.
He sighed. It would have to be the hard way then, and yet, in a way, that made him feel better. As he forced open her mouth and tipped the cup down her throat, he knew that he'd have felt dissatisfied somehow, if she'd crumbled.
She fought and spat, but she couldn't stop herself swallowing at least a little of the water, and slowly her struggles subsided. Her head lolled onto her chest. Jehal waited until she started to snore, and then tipped the rest of the cup on the floor and put his father's sword away.
'I told you it wasn't poison, Knight-Marshal. Although you're going to wish it was.'
60
The Embers
Tears streamed down Jaslyn's face. However much she wiped her eyes, it never helped because the smoke was always there. Semian had shown her how to breathe through a damp cloth like the others, and yet she was still constantly coughing. Even in the vast space of the central cavern, the air was becoming unbearable. Unpleasantly warm too, despite the river of ice-cold water running though the caves. Sooner or later the dragons were going to work out how to foul that as well.
'Turn back, Your Highness,' rasped Rider Jostan. 'There really is no need for this. Go back to the higher caves. Stay there with the alchemists. This is soldiers' work.'
She knew he was right. She didn't even have most of her armour any more. Yet, watching the figures moving through the smoke around her, she knew she had to go. 'Do you want to die slowly in this smoke, Rider Jostan? I, if I must die, will do so quickly and with clean air in my lungs.'
'The Embers will defeat the dragons, Your Highness,' said Semian quietly. 'One way or another.' That's what they called themselves, these soldiers of the Adamantine Guard. Jaslyn had never heard of them before, but she recognised their weapons. No swords or axes or daggers, only huge shields as tall as a man and giant crossbows that fired bolts as long as her leg and needed three soldiers at a time to move them through the caves. Scorpions.
'How many soldiers are there, Rider Semian?'
'I don't know, Your Highness.'
'Then guess. Sixty? Seventy?' As they stumbled along, the smoke grew thicker and the air hotter. Jaslyn had no idea where she was going. They were simply following the soldiers, and if they got lost they'd probably never find their way out. It wasn't a cheering thought.
'Around that number, yes.'
'Against five dragons. So twelve soldiers for each one. Do you think twelve men could ever defeat a dragon, Rider Semian? Never mind that there were a hundred of them and only two dragons in the first place, and they achieved very little then.' After their first meeting in the caves Jaslyn hadn't been allowed near the Guardsmen. They were a special legion, the alchemists said. The best of the best, trained from birth solely to defend the redoubt. They couldn't have a woman, even a princess, in their midst, she was told. And however much she insisted, the alchemists always found a way to stop her from talking to them. They never flatly refused, of course, but they might as well have done.
However special they are, they aren't going to win. Jaslyn's only hope was that she might be able to slip away in the confusion. Or get close enough for Silence to hear her voice.
'I suppose it is unlikely, Your Highness,' said Rider Semian reluctantly.
'They're not going to fight the dragons, Your Highness,' said Rider Jostan. 'They will kill the riders.'
Jaslyn shook her head. Rider Jostan hadn't quite understood what everyone else now knew, what the alchemists had explained with careful patience so there could be no confusion. That the dragons were acting on their own. That there were no rogue riders commanding Silence and Matanizkan and Levanter, but rogue dragons instead. Despite everything he'd been told, Jostan still firmly believed there were men outside, and all he had to do was kill those men and everything would be sorted out.
'One rider will do,' growled Semian. He understood perfectly; Jaslyn had seen his face when the message came to him. Someone was out there, and Semian clearly knew the man. Just a sell-sword, he said. One of the knight-marshal's more foolish ideas. He'd waved it away as unimportant, but his eyes were fierce.
They reached the river. The soldiers, apparently, were following it to get to the outside. As they left the vast space of the cavern and entered the river tunnel, the smoke grew even thicker and the air became scorching. Jaslyn could feel the hot wind on her face, steadily blowing in from the outside. Before long they were wading up to their waists in the freezing water and splashing it over their arms and faces simply to keep from burning. They didn't need their lamps any more; the caves and the smoke here were lit up by a flickering orange glow.
'They've lit a fire at the cave mouth, haven't they?' The thought hadn't occurred to her before. 'How are we going to get out?'
'The river, Your Highness,' said Rider Semian.
'They're going to swim? In full dragonscale?' Despite herself she started to laugh, but her guffaws turned into a coughing fit as the smoke choked her.
'Highness, they're not wearing dragonscale.'
'What?' She sat down at the edge of the river and splashed water in her face and down her throat until the coughing stopped. When she looked up, they'd lost sight of the soldiers in the gloom. Not that they needed any help to find their way out now they had the river to guide them.
'They are not wearing their armour, Your Highness.'
'Then they'll be killed before they even climb out of the river! This is futile! Madness.' Jaslyn punched the water. They'd come all this way, gone through all this pain, and now they'd have to make their way back through the smoke. They'd probably get lost in the main cavern, and even if they didn't, the smoke would get them in the end. Without armour the soldiers wouldn't last long enough for anyone to slip away.
'Perhaps not as futile as you think.' Rider Semian started to strip off his armour. 'Your Highness, it seems we will have to swim.'
'Swim where, Semian?'
'Past the fire at the cave mouth, Your Highness.'
'And then? Perhaps you think we could float down the river without the dragons noticing us?'
'That's exactly what I think,' said Semian. He picked up his shield and poked two fingers through a hole that had been cut through it. Then he showed Jaslyn the two straps around it. 'When the time comes, lie on your back in the water, Your Highness. Hold the straps and press your mouth to the hole. The shield will float, and you will be able to breathe. Don't swim, just drift. Let the water carry you away.'
'When the time comes?'
Semian finished taking off his armour and waded deeper into the water. 'If the Embers somehow fail, I will try to distract the dragons. If I can get close enough that Matanizkan hears my voice, maybe she'll still obey me. You'll know if I've succeeded. That's when you should go.'
'They'll catch you.' Jaslyn peered at Semian. She could only make out the shape of him in the haze now, head and shoulders still clear of the water. He was doing this for her, she realised. This wasn't some plan the alchemists had devised, this was his plan. He was doing it to save her. The revelation left her feeling strange inside. She half rose to order him not to go and then stopped. Either way they were most likely all going to die.
'Better to die on my terms than someone else's,' he said. Those had been her own words when she'd insisted on coming down with the soldiers and somehow trying to escape. He was almost naked, armed only with a sword around his waist, a bottle of something on a string around his neck and a shield the size of a door. Jaslyn watched speechless as he lay back in the water and pulled the shield over him.
Madness. She bit her lip and watched him go dutifully to his death.
61
Disintegration
Climbing the stairs to the top of the Tower of Air was harder than it had been a week ago. Halfway up, Hyram paused to catch his breath. He looked at his hands. They were trembling. He could feel it in his legs too, and it was starting to affect his speech again.
Is it harder because of the sickness, or because of what I know?
No, that wasn't right. He didn't know anything. He only suspected.
No, that wasn't right either. He knew that Prince Jehal had given him his support. He knew that Jehal had betrayed his pact with Shezira and made Zafir speaker. And he knew what Jehal had said, there in the Hall of Speakers, as he did it.
He knew too what had been whispered in his ear, that Jehal and Zafir were lovers. At first he had simply refused to believe it. Then he'd sought the source of this whisper. He couldn't be sure who'd started it, but it seemed to originate from the Tower of Dusk, which meant it came from Shezira. Sour grapes then, besmirching Zafir in a last desperate attempt to overturn the decision of the kings and queens? It wouldn't work. Silvallan wouldn't care and Narghon would probably be pleased to hear it.
It's too late, Shezira. I couldn't change it now even if I wanted to.
He started on the stairs again and eventually reached the top. Usually the tower was loud and busy with servants running up and down between the levels, but today it was quiet and almost empty. The doors to the two topmost floors were guarded. The soldiers hurried to let him pass but they weren't usually here. I have to keep an eye on her. I have to know where she goes. I have to know what she does, who she sees.
'My lord.'
He stopped. He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't seen Zafir. She was sitting in the little anteroom that separated her private rooms from the stairs.
'W-What are you doing out here?'
Zafir stood up. She lowered her eyes demurely and showed him what she had in her hands. 'Embroidery, my lord.'
'Embroidery?' Hyram shook his head. 'And I-I don't have to be your 1-lord.' She'd taken to calling him that as soon as the wedding was over. He'd liked it at first, but now it seemed to make her into a servant. It was almost as though she was using it to build a wall between them.
'Isn't that what you want? Aren't I supposed to sit quietly in my nice airy tower, doing nothing very much while you rule the realms ?'
'One of those r-realms is yours, Zafir. You don't have to relinquish it.'
'The other kings and queens will expect it from me. It is what the speaker is supposed to do, after all.'
'Y-You could be d-different--' He stopped himself. This was nonsense. This wasn't why he'd climbed the tower. 'Y-You sent word to me, my queen. A-About the potions?'
'Yes.' Zafir smiled and beckoned him into her rooms. Past the anteroom was another staircase that led to the very top of the tower, to the queen's dressing room. Beyond that, most of the rest of the level was one large open audience room. Or bedroom, as it had lately become. Zafir snapped her fingers. A man came running with a pair of goblets. He seemed rather large and ungainly for a servant, Hyram thought, and the face was unfamiliar.
'Your manservant is n-new.'
'He's hardly a manservant, my lord. He arrived very recently and brought a gift for you.' She took the goblets and offered one to Hyram, then sat down and picked up her needlework again.
A g-gift? I know of no riders r-reaching my eyrie in the night.'
'Your eyrie, my lord? And I did not say he came on the back of a dragon.'
Hyram sniffed the goblet that Zafir had given him. His eyes widened. 'S-So you do have more.'
'Yes, my lord. Drink. There's plenty more now. I have reached an arrangement with Prince Jehal.' She glanced up at Hyram from time to time as she spoke, but mostly her eyes were fixed on what her fingers were doing, on the stab and thrust of the needle through the cloth.
'The Viper.' Even hearing his name was like being stabbed. 'W-What arrangement have y-you reached, my lady?'
'One that suits me, my lord.'
'There have been w-w-whispers, Zafir.'
'Whispers, my lord?' She stopped and looked up at him, as innocent as a child. For a moment Hyram wondered what he was doing. He had everything, didn't he? Everything he wanted. Why sully it with baseless suspicion?
But it was the Viper, and so he had to know, even if it ruined everything. 'Yes, my lady. Whispers. About you and J-Jehal.'
'The Jehal who murdered my mother?' Her eyes held him fast.
'I-I had not forgotten, my lady.'
'Drink your potion, my lord. Recover your strength a little.' She smiled, stood up and came towards him. 'It is true I have an arrangement with Jehal. If you want to know, I will tell you everything about it.' She briefly touched his hand, then went to stand behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. Hyram sighed and drank deeply as her fingers kneaded his muscles. 'You must be exhausted.'
'Yes.' Hyram put the cup to his lips and drained it. He could feel the potion coursing through him almost at once, hot and fierce.
'So here is the arrangement I have with Jehal. There will be no more potions for you. Not ever.' Her hands stayed at their work. 'Your sickness will take its course, just like King Tyan's has. I will be speaker; Jehal will be my lover. In time he will follow me. And you, my lord, will be kept perfectly alive, trapped in the prison of your own body, to watch it all unfold.'
A numbness filled Hyram's head. He had to run the words through his mind two or three times before he understood that there hadn't been a mistake, and that she'd meant every word. He lurched out of his chair and staggered forward. Something was desperately wrong. The room was spinning. He could hardly feel his arms and legs. As though ... He reached for her and she sprang away from him, snarling and spitting like an angry cat.