Wicked Throne, page 17
Sire. I spent the last four days hiding in bed. I don’t deserve the throne. It’s all politics—make ourselves a golden calf like in the stories humans told before they warded us away from England. Make ourselves a golden calf and maybe we’ll feel better about being lost and frightened. Give ourselves something to worship, even if it’s garbage. Even if it’s not true.
Wait a minute, what throne? The throne, Momaggos’s throne, Nab’s throne, is rubble under an ocean. Washed over the world’s edge. Almathea’s gone. It’s my fault.
A million people are dead. It’s my fault.
I’m the last prince of Sangearth. I’m a paper king of a paper empire. Trold’s still smiling. I dig deep to find my inner Razanhi and throw on his smug little grin. “Thank you, War Leader. Countess.”
“It’s my pleasure, sire,” Trold repeats the title, grinning from ear to ear. “I wanted—I asked to be the one to share the news with you.”
“Thank you.” Nyrene shares a very feminine look with War Leader Trold, all sleight-of-eyes and smiling without smiling. Unspoken commiseration and gratitude passes between them, the delicate emotional balancing act women perform as easily as breathing that makes the social part of me ache to shift into a more appropriate aspect. I look at the snake statues instead. I don’t know what shifting into a female aspect would do to my Razanhi glamour, but with Trold and Nyrene watching, I’d rather not find out.
“Until this afternoon,” Trold says to me, shaking her head. “I’ll see you at the coronation.”
I nod.
Trold beams at Nyrene, who smiles fondly back in dismissal, and sees herself out.
“So,” Nyrene says when the suite door closes, but now she sounds angry. “So, what happened?”
“She startled me. I was asleep. I guess she was very happy to share the wonderful news.” I need a shower. A real one, to wash the very happy news away until I have to climb into a throne I don’t deserve before a people I failed. I drop down to pat the crystal nearest my feet. Teal-lavender foam oozes out in a rainbow and splatters on the pool floor.
“Not Trold. You know I haven’t seen you in four days? Take off that illusion when I’m talking to you,” Nyrene snaps.
Perhaps talking about Razanhi got her upset. I stand up. Banish my glamour. Her eyes are hot, like they were in her labyrinth. My heart sinks. “I haven’t seen you, either.”
“I was counseling our people. Maybe you should have done that, too, instead of—”
“I gave them that speech.”
“The speech? They lost their families. They lost their homes.”
“I know!”
Nyrene says, “You’re lazy. And selfish.”
“So I’m Razanhi. Thank you.”
“Razanhi was never lazy—”
“No, you’re right, he decided to wander off to God knows where and never come back! What if he never comes back? What if he likes it better over there?”
“Stop it!” Her face darkens, half fear and half anger.
I take a breath. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to be emperor.”
“No, you want him to be emperor.”
She tenses. Her expression retracts into disembodied pain. “You were wrong.” The betrayal in her voice punches me in the heart. “Your plan? People died. I never should have listened to you.”
“My plan was flawless.”
She wheezes a laugh. “In what universe is this flawless?”
“Gwynnestri betrayed us.”
“You were wrong.”
“Nyrene.”
“You ruined everything.” Her fingers jump against her left thigh, and stop.
“It wasn’t a foreseen consequen—”
She flinches like she’s going to come at me. “Oh, my mistake. We’re on a vacation to Tes Ap Hanhga. Uncle Akazumat will be delighted. I can’t wait to tell him,” she growls.
I say, “She must have accepted the Shade’s alliance before I approached her.”
“We’re dead! Do you understand that? You and I are going on trial. When my husband comes home, we’ll be tried for this. We’re both going to die. He’ll wait until I have my baby and then execute me. He’ll marry Chiski instead.” Nyrene sags on her feet, still searching my eyes. Her face seems to cave in upon itself. Grayness creeps down her cheeks.
She’s waiting for me to say something, do something. If everything’s ruined, now’s the moment to say screw it all, grab her and kiss her.
Electricity pulses from my scalp to my toes. To hell with them all. This is it.
I waited too long. Nyrene turns away and stalks from the room, skirts flying.
The Imperial body servants drool thin gold paint stripes over me from a hanging leather pouch, front to back. I don’t want to know if these same men tended the late emperor’s naked body, in the bath, getting dressed, or if they’re new hires. I’d like to imagine they’re new. Some things shouldn’t be passed between father and not-son, and body servants are—I’ve just now decided—one of them.
They check that the stripes cover my slicked-back hair in tidy rows. Thank goodness goblin ears are about the same shape as faerie ears. Soon-to-be-emperor Razanhi batting his servants’ hands away might get me labeled the Mad King before the real deal comes back to execute me.
The body servants grab my arms and lift me to my feet. They wrap a bone-white robe around me and tie it shut with a loose cloth of gold cord. They brush kohl into my eye sockets. They tighten their fleshy hands and haul me from the black velvet bench like I’m a child. Imperial guards in heavy armor drag open the door, revealing the Imperial hall where every light has been doused and darkness turns the floor into a deep ocean.
The body servants hold me in place in the doorway like a blood sacrifice. Pale shadows detach from the hall’s depths. Two godsgrown, a man and a woman in coarse white robes, approach on silent feet and reach for my hands. The servants manipulate my arms (don’t struggle, don’t move, I tell myself; not moving makes my arms itch) to force my palms into the godsgrowns’ hands.
The red candles lighting his face from behind me inside the room make his old solemn smile look like a Devil’s Eve mask. Her pinched, proper face beside him is bleach white and cancerous. The two godsgrown rotate my wrists (don’t move) to turn the palms up and press kisses into the middle. They lead me by the hands down the black hall.
Pillar of strength, Nyrene said. Golden calf. I’m not a person, I’m an idea for their use.
No wonder Razanhi went mad.
The godsgrown hold me so tight heat radiates through their clothes and turns my robe into a sauna. Sweat trickles under my arms. I’ve heard about brides leaving would-be spouses at the altar; perhaps some stuffed princeling took one look at the crown waiting for him and did a runner, that’s why they’ve got me in a death grip. Murmurs echo down the hall from the double doors at the opposite end. The godsgrown propel me toward the audience chamber, and two more Imperial guards throw the doors wide. Blazing golden light swamps the hall, gumming my eyes shut and gluing my bare feet to the carpet. Voices shuffle and die. Silence grows the space ahead into an entire dead country. The godsgrown haul me onto the black carpet and triumphant music smashes my skin like a drum.
It’s the citadel all over again. It makes my skin crawl.
The godsgrown bully me to the dais in the grand chamber’s center where Almathea’s high priest and priestess glow with supernatural light. I wonder which illusion spell flashes across my brain, like a child.
We’re not children anymore. I drop to my knees.
“Razanhi, beloved of Momaggos,” intones the priestess.
“Nab, beloved of Nab,” echoes the priest in an earthen tenor under her. “You who will be emperor of Sangearth—”
Of Tes Ap Hanhga and rubble that used to be Almathea. But who’s keeping track?
“—accept these blessings for your reign. God has marked you with Set, rune of power.”
“I accept it,” I make Razanhi say. My heart squirms over itself.
“God has marked you with Nul, rune of weapons,” says the priest.
“I accept it.”
The priestess says, “God has marked you with Vika, rune of the void.”
I swallow. That one feels personal. I keep my voice even. “I accept it.”
The priest intones, “Sangearth and all her people pass into your hands. You, who are our father the emperor, are charged to protect her and her blood and Blood’s Earth as yourself, to uphold righteousness and dignity beneath God, to guide your charges from harm as their flesh is your flesh, and to smite her enemies as your enemies.”
“I, Razanhi, beloved of Momaggos, swear,” I rasp.
The air around us lights up sunbeam yellow. Breath sucks from my lungs, but the runemark fades, leaving purple spots swimming in my eyes as white sparks fizz into ozone all across the black carpet in a large circular pattern. Another sunlit deluge sheers my eyeballs and the circle fades to neon prisms. I pull in a dry, painful breath. The air stings my lungs. Fire spreads down my neck, into my veins. One more flash rips through me, rending flesh into ash and boiling the fat from my bones. When I come to, I’m on my knees, caked in stinking sweat. At least my glamour held.
The last runemark fades. Little fires break out on the carpet. Magicians by the harpist rush to put them out.
“Accept these blessings,” says the high priest.
“Nab, beloved of Nab,” echoes his wife.
“And you will be blessed all the days of your reign.”
“Like my father was,” I blurt out. For a moment, Razanhi and I are the same, united in skepticism and fear. Happily, the high priestess and her husband pretend not to hear.
Drawing air into my lungs is like breathing glass. A pressure, a sound, pokes me in the brain, and as the godsgrown haul me to my feet again, some of the noise solidifies into tumultuous applause.
I drink it in as Razanhi, somehow empty. The high priest and priestess get down on their knees. So do the godsgrown. And the nobles in the stands all around the audience chamber.
“Hail, Razanhi!” echoes from five hundred throats. “Hail, Emperor!”
“Get up,” I say. I climb the dais’s steps and prowl up the long birch plank floor to Razanhi’s new throne. It looks just like the Imperial throne, which seems wrong. That throne’s gone. It doesn’t belong here. It wants to pretend nothing’s changed, as though we’ve all decided to go to Tes Ap Hanhga for fun and dragged the throne along with us. Twisting white driftwood forms the back and armrests, looking like fossil flames. Thin gold stripes notch the seat’s front edge. The ivory legs, carved from the bones of Nab’s enemies, look like plastine fakes set on this foreign soil.
Shuffling behind me. I turn around, lock eyes with the high priest. He sets a mask over my face. A deer skull. I’ll sit on that throne with this mask on my face until morning, not moving, not sleeping, to hold my vigil. I’m not just ascending in title, I’m leaving the mortal realm and rising to the rank of god-king.
I’m a spirit. I’m their spirit.
I sit down. The driftwood’s surprisingly soft, smooth as silk, cold as ice. One by one, the flesh-and-blood people in that chamber file past me, bowing, curtsying, smiling at their handiwork. Nyrene curtsies, stone-faced. My heart flips over, but when she walks out on Beurnock’s heels, I can’t go after her or talk to her. Soon everyone’s gone except for two Imperial guards under the dais, facing the chamber doors.
Silence is hell but it’s good for making plans. My back hurts after sitting on this throne for hours or half hours. Time stops in the silence. Time stops at night, too, when you don’t have a clock. Funny, we’re so accustomed to passing night by without really living it but instead watching from the shadow side of dreams. When we wake up, we get the sense time has sped along, maybe even hours—but we didn’t live them. Awake, you get to know how deep the night goes. Why, it’s just as long as daytime! That’s a scary thought when you’re in the deep dark. Thoughts like that make the electric fear circle closer, sniffing for a way in.
I’ve wrecked everything. No wonder Nyrene hates me. Thanks to me, people are dead. Thanks to me, we lost the fight in the first round. Even Razanhi would have lasted longer. When he comes back, she’s right, he’ll chop off my head. If she’s lucky, he’ll blame me for everything. She’ll still lose her position.
I’ve destroyed her life.
Elsewhere in the palace, merfolk and faeries alike are safe in bed. Elsewhere, the Tes Ap Hanhgush seagate rumbles, transporting cargo from God knows where. Not Pelay. Probably not Gadran Vi, either. If Zhossyr Eska knows what’s good for her, she’ll quietly slip away and join the elves. Hooray, not only am I still a goblin in a foreign court representing all of goblinkind, but now politics will add a huge double dose of racism. Thanks to me.
No, thanks to the Shade. He’s responsible for all this. Whatever mental problems he has, he took them out on innocent civilians. That’s unforgivable. He’d already snuck into Almathea, he could have murdered whomever he blames for his pain—hopefully, nobody I like. He didn’t take the easy route. He pointed his revenge cannon at an entire people and murdered elders, adults, and children who had nothing to do with him.
He’s a monster and he needs to be stopped. The words sink to the bottom of my skull like a decision.
My sitting on this throne is doing nobody any good. I’m a spy, not a monarch. I tried faking it for a little while, and I got people killed. I’ll just ruin something else if I stay.
I promised Nyrene I’d stay.
He’s a monster, and he needs to be stopped.
I tried stopping him as Razanhi. I’m no good being Razanhi. I’ve got to do this my way, myself. Hollow dread seeps from a dark hole in my chest. I’m not a monarch? I’m not an assassin, either. The Shade’s a sorcerer, not a two-bit hedge wizard learning to cast his first fire spell from a hand-me-down book. I’m way out of my league. He could turn me into a beetle the moment he sees me.
I’ve got to infiltrate his location and murder him.
A shudder works up my spine. What else can I do? Sit here and wait for Razanhi? Or the elves?
I slide off the throne and stride for the double doors. The guards hurry after. I snap, “Stay here. I’ll be back in a moment.”
I head for the seagate.
17
HALFWAY DOWN THE DESERTED eastern hall, Deercat rounds the corner, heading toward me.
No, it can’t be Deercat. Some other faerie with the same handsome face, pulled-back black hair, twice-broken nose, and impenetrable wall of muscles. My heart swallows itself before common sense kicks in. The big man’s dressed in a green-and-yellow-striped goblin cloak and dirty rust-colored traveler’s clothes. He looks like someone’s hired goon raided a nobleman’s closet, never mind that delicate goblin silk looks trashy appropriated by a faerie. I smile at him as we close in on each other.
He grabs my neck and throws me into the wall.
“What the hell?” I yelp. He’s on me before I can push away, driving my head into a mural. Plaster smashes my cheekbone.
Oh my God. It is Deercat.
“Turn back!” Deercat slams me again and then throws me to the ground. I struggle to get out from under him, and he backhands me, blasting my vision white. Deercat locks up my wrists and plants his knee on my chest. He shifts his weight to crush the air from my lungs. “Turn back!”
“Let’s not fight in public.”
He grabs my jaw. I throw him off. He lets my arms go to raise a fist high above my aching head. It hovers like a war hammer. “Turn back or I’ll break your face. Ivar!”
I drop the glamour.
Deercat’s mouth falls open and hangs. His nose hitches, and a muscle in his neck seethes around unsaid curses, questions. His grip loosens. His nostrils flare. His fist jerks back and plows into my eye.
“Ow!”
“Murderer!”
“No—”
“Traitor! You killed my father! Why?” He grips my collar and leans into his arm. Spots wheel around my eyes. His expression sharpens to edged steel.
“I didn’t,” I wheeze.
“Liar!”
“I was the one who called the army to avenge him! Or did you miss the part where I sent you to Vorsmad?”
“You—”
“I!”
He smashes me down, left arm planted across my chest. “You bombed Almathea!”
“The elves bombed Almathea!”
“On your command!”
“Did you miss the part where I was trying to save the city?”
Deercat says, “You destroyed our fleet. You destroyed our city. Father should have beheaded you when he had the chance.”
“You destroyed our fleet. I struck Eorha like a planet! You chickened out and got us caught—”
He shakes his head. “Whatever happened in Eorha—”
“Not whatever happened—”
“I can’t believe I trusted you!” He squeezes my neck.
I tear his fist from my collar. He pops my nose and doubles his grip. I growl, “Let go, stupid.”
“Don’t call me stupid.”
“Don’t accuse me of regicide.”
Deercat gets off me. I swallow air, gazing up at him and trying to figure out why. Only, my head’s filled with pulsing volcanic pressure, my mouth tastes sticky, and if he weren’t kneeling on my chest, I’d punch his nose through his head. I tell him so.
“I’ll shoot you,” he says, but there’s no real threat behind it.
“Not if I shoot you first.”
“You know all of Sangearth is hunting you?” he says.
“Yeah, well, I needed a scapegoat to get them to follow me.”
His forehead wrinkles. “That was you? Who gave the speech?”
“Yeah.”
Deercat snags my collar, either to hit me again or drive my head through the floor—but does neither. He searches my burning face, silent.
“Well?” I say.
Deercat forces out a rough breath.
I stick out my chin and push my voice into Deercat’s higher register. “‘Where’s Razanhi?’ I don’t know,” I answer myself as myself. “He was supposed to capture the man who killed your father.”
