The Bloodsworn (8 page)

Erik snorted softly. “As though it makes any difference. Visions. Delusions. Either way, you're not here.”

“No, I'm not. But you are, and you need me.”

Just like that, their moment of camaraderie was over. It had ever been thus between them. “You've thought that your whole life,” Erik growled, “and it hasn't been true yet. Speaking of delusions.”

Tom just laughed. “Your tongue grows sharp in your despair, brother. But you should lower your voice, if there is any hope of convincing your guards that you are not, in fact, mad.”

Erik glanced at his bedchamber door. The wood was thick enough that the guards ought not be able to hear, but Tom was right—it was best not to take chances.

“You brought this on yourself, you know,” Tom said.

“So you keep telling me,” Erik snapped. “If that's your idea of helping, you can leave now.”

“It gives me no satisfaction to say it, brother. But you must own the truth, if things are going to be different from now on.”
Tom's blue eyes were solemn, piercing. “And things
must
be different, Erik, because you can't leave this kingdom in the hands of our bastard half brother. You know that.”

Erik closed his eyes. “I know.”

“You always were sentimental,” Tom sighed. “Just like Father. And I even admired you for it, though I don't suppose you'll believe that. But you must realise now that I was right.”

Erik started to reply, but found he had nothing to say.

Tom rose from the window seat and crossed over to Erik's side of the room. He moved with the same feline grace he'd had in life; his eyes burned with the same intensity. Erik could almost have thought him flesh and blood—except he cast no shadow, even though his body blocked the light of the window. “I know you wanted us to be closer,” he said.

“I wanted a true brother, that's all.”

“I wanted that too, for what it's worth. I even think, if we had it to do over again . . .” He trailed off, shook his head. “But making Father's bastard your heir was never going to fill that hole. It was a terrible mistake.”

Erik couldn't deny it. “Still, I don't blame him. How could he be otherwise, given what he went through? If I'd let Father take him in when he was young, he would have grown into a different man. He wouldn't have resented me so.”

“What does it matter? That's not what happened. He grew up a bastard, dreaming of the chance to take your place. Now you've given it to him. He married the woman who should have been yours, an alliance that puts her brother, commander general of your armies, in his pocket. Right under your nose, he did it. And this”—Tom spread his arms—“is the result.”

Erik glared at the apparition of his dead brother. “Do be sure to let me know when we get to the part where you're helping.”

“I
can
help you,” Tom said, “and I will, if you promise me you will do what's necessary.”

“What do you mean?”

“We are at the end of it, brother. Our father's kingdom lies an inch from ruin, but it is not too late. Make peace. Consolidate your rule. Marry and make an heir. No more hiding from the difficult decisions. No more indulging your precious honour. Promise me you are prepared to do what you must to save this kingdom. Whatever it takes.”

“I . . .” Erik shielded his eyes from the harsh glare of the window. His head buzzed like a swarm of flies. The harder he tried to ignore it, the louder it grew. He felt weak, dizzy . . . He hadn't eaten enough . . .

“Promise me.”

Erik growled, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “
Enough.
You need not doubt me. I took your head, didn't I?”

The buzzing died away. Erik drew a relieved breath.

“You did,” Tom said. “And now you must be prepared to take our brother's.”

“I am, gods help me.” The words settled around Erik like ash, as though he stood once more amid the smouldering rubble of the Elders' Gate, mourning his new brother. He'd thought Liam dead in the explosion, and the pain of it . . . He felt it again now as a fresh wound. He'd wanted so much for them to be a family . . . But that was gone, a dream left in ruin like the shattered remains of the ancient tower.

He opened his eyes, met the intensity of Tom's gaze. “I will take his head, and this time, I'll make sure all the city is there to see it. Let no one doubt what fate awaits those who would betray the crown.” Sighing, he gestured at the door. “But there is still the small matter of my captivity. I'm afraid I can see no way out.”

“There is always a way out.” Tom smiled, held out a hand. “Come, brother, I will show you.”

I
t was strange, Alix thought, how one's state of mind coloured the world. She had expected Timra to be grand beyond description, as befitted the “City of Roses.” The Andithyrians considered themselves the height of culture and civilisation, a narrative largely embraced by the rest of the continent (with the exception, perhaps, of the Harrami). Certainly Alix's parents, along with the rest of the Aldenian aristocracy, had spared no expense to furnish their estate with Andithyrian
everything
, from tapestries to wine to silverware. Even the harp Alix's music teacher had laboured fruitlessly to teach her was Andithyrian, as was the man himself. All her life, Alix had longed to set eyes upon the glittering city whence these glories came.

But Timra was a city under siege, capital of a nation under conquest, and Alix saw nothing grand about her—at least not from this vantage. Though the gates were as ornate as the tapestries depicted, and the towers did indeed stretch to the sky, Timra seemed to cower beneath the black belly of storm clouds gathering over her.

“That's gonna come down,” Ide said. “Before dark, mostlike.”

“Let's hope not,” Asvin said, drawing the oxcart to a halt, “or we're going to freeze our bits off.”

Ide made a face. “You sure we really gotta do this? Don't see why we can't just go in the front door with him.” She hitched a thumb at Wraith.

“
You
could, sure,” the big man said. “Maybe even Her Ladyship here, if you keep your mouths shut and don't let the accents give you away. But these two?” He gestured at Dain and Vel. “No way a pair of Onnani gets through the city gates without the roaches asking questions, and trust me—they're just waiting for a wrong answer. You want to ride with me, you're welcome. But your friends go through the storm drain.”

“Dain's a Wolf,” Ide said. “I go where he goes.”

“We're all staying together,” Alix said firmly.

“Fair enough. So quit your whinging and get out of my wagon.”

Asvin hopped down off the driver's seat, and Alix and her party reluctantly followed suit, leaving only Wraith and two of his men. “Keep a low profile,” Wraith said. “I don't want a bunch of corpses putting the roaches on high alert.”

“One doesn't sneak into Timra without cutting a throat or two,” Asvin said, “but we'll try to keep it to a minimum.”

“You do that.” Wraith twitched the reins and continued on, leaving Alix, Asvin, and the others standing in the road.

“This storm drain,” Alix said. “Will it be guarded?”

“Not from the outside,” Asvin said. “Inside the walls, maybe. The roaches know we've used the drains before, mostly to smuggle in weapons. It's a dance—we loosen the grate, they replace it, we loosen it again. Sometimes they post a man on the inside at night. If so, that's one of the throats we'll have to cut. Or rather, my comrades will. They'll be waiting for us inside the walls.”

“Isn't there a curfew?” Dain asked.

Asvin nodded. “We'll have to stay out of sight. Anyone spots us in the streets after dark, we'll be shot.”

Alix cast a worried glance at her companions. She and Ide knew how to get about without being seen, but she doubted the others were much practiced at stealth.

“Don't worry, my lady,” Asvin said with an easy smile. “You and I are sneaky enough for all of us.”

They approached the walls from the south, using the thick brush along the riverbank as cover. Their path wound lazily through the hills, so that dusk had already settled by the time they reached the walls, and the smell of wood smoke was in the air.

“Timra,” Vel murmured, gazing up at the battlements. “How long I have waited to see it.” There was a feverish, almost desperate gleam in her eye.

“For the relics, I suppose,” Dain said. The Andithyrians had managed to whisk away many of the empire's treasures before fleeing Erroman, including the most sacred artefacts of the Nine Virtues. Onnani clergy often travelled to Timra to pray over them.

Vel blinked, as if woken from a dream. “I . . . yes, that's right. I had planned a pilgrimage.”

“Probably didn't plan on having to crawl through the storm drains, though,” Ide said, eyeing the iron grate ruefully.

Vel sighed. “That will smell awful, won't it?”

“Like rotting awful smeared with shite,” Asvin said cheerfully. “You'll want to hike up those robes, Daughter.”

They waited by the river until dark, the sky rumbling and flashing with the gathering storm. Dain cursed their luck as the first droplets began to fall, but Alix knew it was a boon. “The clouds blot out the moon,” she explained, “and the rain will help cover the noise.”

“You really are going to be perfect for this,” Asvin said with a wink. “Now come on, it's time.”

They slipped out from cover and rushed at the walls, following the shallow canal that connected the storm drain to the river. The drain itself was a low stone arch covered by an iron grate, just high enough to admit a man. Asvin knelt beside it and waited.

And waited.

“Well?” Alix whispered, glancing nervously up at the ramparts. If a guard should happen to peer down from the wall walk . . .

Asvin shook his head.

The rain began to fall harder, spattering noisily against Alix's hood. Still they waited. Her hands balled into fists, and not just from the cold. She could feel the time running like
raindrops off her cloak. They'd wasted two days getting here, and it would be another three to reach Indrask, the village where Rodrik lived. And that was just the beginning of his trail—the gods only knew where he'd gone from there. How long would it take to find him? Would Wraith even keep his word? What if Liam had already been found out, or Erik had escaped, or . . .

Stop it.
She couldn't afford to descend into panic. There was too much at stake.

A shrill whistle sounded, as of a bird calling. Asvin grabbed the grate and pulled, the iron coming free with a screech that made Alix wince. “Now you see why we waited,” he said.

“The whistle—a signal?”

“Means the patrol on the wall walk has gone past. Now if you wouldn't mind . . .” He gestured at the drain. Grimacing, Alix got down on hands and knees and crawled inside.

The water was deeper than it looked. Freezing cold, and foul—
gods
, it was foul—the rain sweeping the filth from the capital's gutters, mixing it into a vile slurry that coursed through the sewers. The stone beneath Alix's hands was slick, and anonymous bits of debris brushed her bare skin as she moved. It was all she could do not to retch. The dark, at least, was a blessing, sparing her the sight of the sludge she crawled through. The water level was climbing rapidly with the rain, but the journey was blessedly brief. Already, Alix could feel a sharp breeze on her face from somewhere up ahead.

“Hold,” Asvin called, his voice all but lost in the rush of the water.

Alix could see the grate now—all four inches of it. The rest was lost in a torrent of water.
We're going to have to put our heads under
, she realised in horror. Just for an instant, she heard her mother's voice, as clear as if she were still six years old:
A lady does not get mud on her dress, Alix Black!
She laughed ruefully, inaudible through the din.

A low scrape signalled the moving of the grate. Alix reached up, thinking to climb, and was startled when a pair of hands grabbed her wrists. The next thing she knew, she was being dragged through the filth and out into the street. She shook herself like a wet dog, casting about for something,
anything
, to wipe her face with. Then someone pressed a dry rag into her hands. She didn't even look to see who it was before towelling herself down.

“Not a pleasant journey,” said an unfamiliar voice. “These days, we come prepared.”

Alix didn't recognise the woman who'd handed her the rag, but her hair glowed white under the flashing sky. A second figure knelt by the drain, helping the next in line. Vel emerged, spluttering and gagging, and was handed a towel of her own.

The newcomers took turns helping Alix's companions out of the drain. Asvin was last, and he barely paused to wipe his face before crouching in the shadow of the wall to grab hold of something: the body of a guard. Alix hadn't even noticed it in the dark. Asvin and one of his comrades dragged it across the street and out of sight. “Let's get going,” he said.

They moved through a warren of narrow, twisting alleys, keeping away from the main streets as best they could. The rain was coming down hard now, and several of the streetlamps had been snuffed out. Alix dared to hope they might make it all the way to the inn without being seen.

It was not to be.

“You there! Hold!” A voice of authority.
City guard
, Alix thought in dismay.

They broke into a run, making for the intersection ahead. The guard cursed in Oridian; moments later, an arrow whistled past, shattering against the wall ahead of them. Asvin banked left at the T. They pounded up the street, passing closed doors and shuttered windows. “This way,” Asvin hissed, cutting into a branching alley.

Alix obeyed, not even daring to glance behind her until she reached the end of the alley, another unmarked T. “Asvin, which way—” She whirled, but he was gone.

“Hold, I say!” Lightning flashed, sketching the outline of a figure standing in the alley behind them, bow drawn. “Don't move!”

Rain streamed off Alix's face, sending icy tendrils down the back of her neck. “Ide?”

“Not before he gets you.”

The guard started to make his way up the alley, bow still trained on Alix. “Why have you broken curfew? You must know the penalty is—”

He never finished. A slight figure rose up from the shadows and, in one liquid motion, stole up behind the guard and opened his throat. The Oridian hit the cobblestones in a clatter of armour.

Asvin knelt over the body, wiping his knife on the dead man's tabard.
One doesn't sneak into Timra without cutting a throat or two.
Alix hoped fervidly that two would be enough.

“This way,” Asvin said. “We're nearly there.”

The sign on the door read
closed
, but Asvin walked in anyway, knowing the inn had been cleared out by the Resistance for their own use. Wraith was waiting for them. “Glad to see you made it in one piece,” he said.

“Barely,” Alix muttered.

“Oh, don't be dramatic,” Asvin said, sidling up to the hearth. “Two throats is a perfectly respectable tally.”

“Human lives are not a tally,” Vel said coldly.

Asvin ducked his handsome head in a parody of deference. “Of course not, Daughter. Beg your pardon.”

Wraith ignored them both. “I'll give you a moment to clean up,” he told Alix, “then we'll talk. I got an idea how to get us inside the palace gates, but after that we're running blind. None of us has ever set foot in a place like that, but you—well, you're a king's bodyguard, aren't you? Reckon you'll have a much better idea what to expect.”

So that's why I'm here
, Alix realised grimly. “I thought you needed me for my sneaking skills.”

“Those'll come in handy too, make no mistake. But good intelligence is worth half a dozen stealthy men.”

Oh, he was cunning, this one, waiting until now to bring this up. She'd been emotional back at the farmhouse. Irresolute. Reminding her that she was a
king's bodyguard
, that it was precisely her experience protecting Erik that he intended to exploit, might have tipped the balance, provoking a knee-jerk refusal. Instead, he'd waited until it was too late for her to back out. He'd manipulated her as deftly as any courtier.

“Get cleaned up. Then I'll want your thoughts.” So saying, he withdrew.

Alix glared at his back with a mixture of resentment and self-loathing.
Dear gods, what have I become?
She glanced over at Asvin, warming his hands by the fire as if he were
merely passing a pleasant evening with friends. “Tell me something. Have you always been this cavalier about killing?”

The green eyes narrowed sharply.

“I'm not judging, truly. I just . . . I want to know if you started out like this, or . . .”

“Or if it just happens.” He looked away, and was silent long enough that Alix wasn't sure he would answer. Then he said, “I honestly don't know. Would you believe I scarcely remember who I was before all this?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, “I would.”

He laughed, not unkindly. “You're not like me, if that's what you're worried about.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, for starters, I never would have asked the question.” Another thoughtful pause. “But it does change you, this life. Has to, doesn't it?”

“Had you ever killed a man before the war?”