Crown of Gold and Ruin, page 52
Jaden turned his head away, leaning the nape of his neck against the throne’s arm, the cold metal nipping his skin. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“No, I didn’t, because I don’t know how to answer, Jaden.” He studied the manacles binding Jaden’s wrists, the chafe wounds on the skin beneath, and Jaden thought the young man’s eyes glimmered with tears. “Fuck. I’d rather be on the streets than watch you endure this for a whole night, my prince.” And he dropped his head into his hands for a moment, clenching fistfuls of auburn hair in taut fingers as if locked in an internal battle. He then looked up at Jaden, with a gaze which now truly brimmed wetly, and removed his dagger from his belt, working at the manacle lock with it.
“No, wait, Vralen,” Jaden tensed. “If you do this, you will lose everything. Worse, he may …”
Vralen paused with the dagger poised on the manacle lock. “I know. Let it be so. And just so you know, and don’t ever ask me about this again, for this is forbidden, jealously hidden information in this court, but I only serve your father because I was forced to swear an oath to do so. It was that or a lifetime in a dungeon, and I was younger than you when the choice was put before me.”
“A lifetime in a dungeon?” Jaden croaked. “What did you—”
“I said, don’t ever ask me about it. Don’t ever ask anyone here about it.” He began twisting at the manacle again. “But just know that for years serving as a squire in this court, it was fear that drove me. Fear that made me better than every other boy my age, fear that let me win every tourney, fear that gave me this,” he pointed to the badge of office pinning his cloak, that of a captain of the royal guard. The manacle shattered under the dagger, and Jaden rubbed his wrists together, shivering.
“Fear of Flavian? But he was not always so awful,” Jaden whispered.
“There were a lot of things to be afraid of. There still are.” Vralen paused, helping Jaden up with a hand on his arm to steady him, infusing long-numb legs with movement. “And your father, Jaden Blacknett, though it may never seem that way, is perhaps the man in this court who is most afraid.”
Jaden gaped at him. “Of what? He is the King of Gold.”
Vralen tugged him down the marble stairs, behind the ancient throne, to the little servant’s doorway in the back. “Everything can very easily be stolen away. And a title and a realm are oft times the easiest of those, Jaden. Remember that. The ruin always comes.”
Jaden left the palace under cover of night and would not return for weeks. When he finally found Lyra, they hid together for days in a city tavern, kissing and loving and reading books and sleeping. It was a mistake. A dangerous, damning mistake.
For, as Vralen would inform him later, she was not, as she had told him, an orphaned girl from a small village who had fled a slaver’s caravan and wound up friends with the crown prince of Eria. No, she was Lyra Tyrol, Crown Princess of Carthage and she had run away from the Shadowford and its preying mage.
After all, another liar.
26
Warrior Marionettes
They trekked back to the boat. Nearly another week of rowing later, the River Knife widened into a massive lake. Sunlight shafted into green water, and the rich smell of rotting earth and burrowing animals reached them. The wind carried with it a faint tang of wood smoke and latrines, and following the whiff took them to the town of Iriken. With its position on the borderland, it formed a crossing point between the two ancient kingdoms of Eria and Carthage.
Though the town was Carthaginian down to the bone, there was still the risk that Jaden and Trystan might be recognized, especially by Blackcloak spies, so Scythe and Agrenost left them behind to guard the boat and entered the small lake town, intent on restocking the supplies that had run low during their peregrination through the Hornvales. Agrenost had stowed bags of coin under the boat.
“How convenient,” Trystan had drawled.
As Scythe stalked into the town behind the bulk of Agrenost, her hood drawn up, it seemed to her that Iriken squatted like a toad on the lake. It was a town of huddled houses whose balconies leaned to peer into the overgrown garden of its neighbor. Roads winding between unkempt hedges were filthy and damp from the recent rains. Beyond the crumbling brick walls of Iriken, there was a vast labor camp for the poor and unemployed. As they passed, Scythe could smell the flooded latrines even from where she walked on the other side of the lake. She saw the pale, gaunt faces of the anguished staring forlornly into the wiry black brush and the wide starless sky above. In the center of town there was a raucous tavern, a naked young woman painted on its signboard, and its grimy windows hazed by pipe smoke and stains of spilled ale. It was into this that Agrenost disappeared.
He had raised his hands in warning to Scythe’s half-amused protest. “I enter the tavern for news, not to get drunk. Local gossip often has many slivers of truth in it. We must learn the disposition of this new kingdom we are entering. Eria may not be the only realm affected by Durran. Who knows what enmities we may face in the kingdom of the falcon?” He made a face. “And I actually despise getting drunk.”
Scythe wandered the town, buying wine and food and even a few extra knives from a weapons-maker on a shadowy street. She moved through the main plaza into a smaller thoroughfare where a night market was in full swing. Stalls sprouted from the muddy cobbles like colorful mushrooms, selling everything from honey to cheap jewelry to bloody meat. Girls clad in nothing but transparent wisps of silk slithered around, following the fat merchants with their equally fat pockets. Scythe consulted the parchment Agrenost had given her away from the prying eyes of Jaden and moved deeper into the twist of houses. Old men sat gambling and smoking cheroot under red awnings, while matrons gossiped at the communal fountain and rambunctious children ran filthy and naked on the streets, waving toy swords. It was a peaceful place, Iriken, so submerged within the quaint bewilderment of ordinary life. Despite the gaudy prostitutes and swaggering sell-swords, there was a deep sense of quietness here as dusk fell, enveloping the streets in shadows that hid not monsters, but were instead empty and calm.
She paused in her wanderings opposite the tavern that Agrenost had disappeared into and waited. A few moments passed, and then she startled, her knife springing to her hand. She whirled and almost decapitated Agrenost.
“Careful, girl,” he rumbled.
Scythe smiled at him sheepishly. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me. I have bad memories.”
He gave her a knowing look, then gestured her to follow him down a dark, dusty alley.
“Where are we—”
Agrenost silenced her with an urgent gesture and pointed clandestinely to the rear of the alley. There was a wrought-iron gate there, and Scythe saw an empty, slumbering street beyond, lost in shadow through the holes in it. She realized, if she put her gaze to the gate, she would remain concealed from passersby on the opposite street but be able to follow their every movement and listen to their conversations without them being aware.
She glanced back at Agrenost, trying to discern his motives. She noticed the wild calculation in the frowning gray-blue eyes, and the sense of danger in the general’s muscular brown limbs, ready to explode into action at any moment. There was a whale-oil streetlamp glowing at the far end of the alley, casting a hesitant pool of slippery ochre light around its metal base, throwing Agrenost’s shadow into huge, warped, and terrifying relief upon the dirty brick wall of the brothel towering three stories above them. The faint stink of rot issued from a gutter.
Scythe watched as Agrenost tilted his head to the sky and closed his eyes, counting on his thick fingers to ten. The final pinky folded down into his palm, and Agrenost jerked into a silent, stalking movement. He crouched beside the iron gate, and pressed his face to it, then gestured for Scythe to do the same. Wary now, fingering her weapons, she kneeled beside the general and peered out into the murky street beyond. During the day it would a bright, bustling thoroughfare, but at this time of night, about two hours before dawn, it was as silent and dark as a ghost town, though faint strains of music and voices could be heard from the distant night market. When more voices were heard, she exchanged a glance with Agrenost and pressed her face closer to the grilles, waiting.
There was the flickering radiance of a flaming torch approaching with the strangers, and feathers of purple-blue smoke drifted through the wrought-iron gate to tickle Scythe’s nose—she realized from the smell of cheroot that some of it came not from the torch, but from pipes being smoked. She also knew from the weight and power of the heavy footsteps approaching that these weren’t ordinary men, but warriors laden with weapons. Their voices were low and guttural, and they weren’t speaking the common tongue. They came into view: large, bearded, and muscular, and garbed in heavy furs and oilskins, battle-axes strapped across their broad backs. Bjornanns.
They spoke in throaty Banelorian, their voices rattling rumbles disturbing the night’s silence. Scythe, despite being well versed in many languages, could make neither head nor tail of these garbled words from so distant a land, and was slightly relaxing her grip on the gate, when the hugest of them shifted to the left. He was holding the torch, and wavering red light gleamed upon the planes of his rugged face and the wild, long tangle of his blue-black hair. Scythe stifled a gasp and whirled to Agrenost, mouthing, “Gwyn Gendelson.” Agrenost nodded in grim acknowledgement and turned back to peer through the gate.
Scythe watched as the Bjornanns appeared to reach a decision—Gwyn was obviously the leader, judging from the body language of the other two.
Gwyn smiled and placed a hand on one of his comrade’s shoulder. The broken chains from Elenon’s dungeons still hung around his powerful white wrist like the shackles of a freed slave. Scythe expected him to speak in Banelorian, but the Bjornann she had seen in the palace dungeons in deep conversation with Jaden now spoke in the common tongue, heavily accented.
“The Banelore and your family await you, Tyr, my friend,” the Bjornann declared in his smooth, powerful voice. “We have lingered far too long in these accursed, sweltering lands. Go home, back to the ice and the sea. You too, Colborn.” He looked at the other man, a wide, plump warrior.
Tyr stepped forward into the firelight. He was a powerful warrior, with a handsome, dark face and thick brown beard. He, too, spoke in the common tongue. “Gwyn, how can we abandon you to these warm, green lands and the treacherous men they breed? Come home with us, brother, and forget your redemption, as you call it. You need it not. Astrid and Ella are gone forever, and you know it.” Gwyn flinched, but Tyr continued undeterred. “We shall battle Bloodbeard together upon the great icepacks, and they shall sing of us in mead halls for generations to come.”
“Tyr, you know we have no hope of defeating Bloodbeard without what we came for,” Gwyn admonished. “Go, now.” He was intransigent, unperturbed by their protests, and Tyr appeared to see that. After Gwyn handed Tyr the torch, they clasped each other in a warrior’s embrace, and then Gwyn did the same with Colborn, and the two Banelorian warriors strode away down the street, Tyr shaking his head mournfully.
At the corner of the street, just at the edge of Scythe’s narrowing vision as the gate barred her gaze, Tyr turned back.
“Bring the young king back unharmed! We shall see if Erian royal blood is as golden as they say.”
Gwyn inclined his head and watched as Tyr and Colborn disappeared into Iriken’s labyrinthine streets. Then the huge Bjornann turned to go back the way they had come, and his glacial blue eyes seemed to pierce the shadows that veiled the wrought-iron gate and the two crouching figures behind it. Scythe sat frozen. Gwyn stared into the darkness once more, looked left and right, and then abruptly strode away up the unlit street, his furs streaming around him, his iron-heeled boots ringing upon the cobbles.
They rose to their feet.
“I overheard them talking about hunting our young king down in the tavern,” Agrenost said at last. “Said they wanted his blood, though I do not know for what conceivable reason. I had to find you as soon as possible, so we can return as quickly as possible to camp.”
Scythe bit her lip, scouring her memories for all the studies she and Drast had done on Bjornanns and their jarldoms of ice and steel. “Do you know who this Bloodbeard is they speak of?”
“No, I do not,” grunted Agrenost as he picked up one of Scythe’s packs. The general shook his head angrily, reminding Scythe of a bloodhound shaking its sleek, proud head clean of dripping water. “We need to leave Iriken and the borderlands. Quickly.”
* * *
Scythe left Agrenost to attend to one more pressing task in Iriken and left the town under the shimmer of late moonlight, tracing the muddy bank of the lake until she reached the overhang of willows that sheltered their boat and the royal guards who watched it, looking bored and irritated with having been left behind, especially in each other’s company. She noticed their swords lying around unsheathed, and a few bruises on both their bodies which hadn’t been there before. They had probably been training.
Jaden leaped to his feet as he saw her. She had to quell amusement as Trystan rolled his eyes at his adoptive brother’s eagerness and then had to quell something else, something hot and vital that twisted in her lower belly as Trystan gave her his wicked, private grin that lit up his beautiful, tanned face.
“There was an interesting turn of events,” she commented, as Trystan made room for her beside him, and handed her a flagon of wine. She fished in her newly purchased supply packs and handed each of them an apple tart, which they grabbed happily. She leaned against the solid warmth of Trystan beside her.
“What’s the turn of events?” Jaden enquired, his blond hair freshly washed in the lake and fluttering gently in the midnight winds.
“Gwyn Gendelson,” she said, keeping her eyes trained on Jaden, studying every flicker of movement, every brush of reaction across his stunning face. The king had stiffened, nearly imperceptibly, and leaned forward, biting his lip. “He and two Bjornann cronies are on the hunt for us. And I think they want your blood, Highness.” She raised her brows. “For some inconceivable reason.”
Jaden leaned back, assuming nonchalance, though Scythe knew what a master he was at counterfeiting that artful uncaring and studied boredom that concealed a whip-smart mind, perfect for picking apart the royal courts he would one day rule. “Perhaps they want to drink my blood,” he said flatly.
Beside her, Trystan reached into the pack for another apple tart. “What terrible bastards,” he observed. “I shall genuinely strive to not think of all the times I have wanted to do that myself.”
Jaden threw an empty flagon of wine at Trystan’s head. Trystan ducked it nimbly, laughing, and turned to her. There was a streak of golden honey at the corner of his mouth from the tarts, and Scythe very much wanted to lick it off. When he again gave her that warm, wicked grin that promised so many exquisite things, she gave into the impulse and leaned in, dragging her tongue slowly across his lips.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jaden ignoring them and looking out across the dark waters of the lake, lambent with starlight, his face shadowed yet thoughtful as he weighed the Bjornann runestone in his hand.
* * *
As they headed north to the Shadowford, Jaden relished the feel of a powerful stallion galloping between his thighs again. They had switched to horseback outside Iriken, as Agrenost had turned up at dawn that day, having spent the last of his coin on four fast, elegant steeds.
Despite abandoning the boat, their path still ran alongside the River Knife, one of the most beautiful waterways in the West, particularly the lush delta it formed when it entered the true land of mighty Carthage. The murky brown stream widened until it was a roaring expanse of the purest blue-green, dotted with windswept waves that reminded Jaden achingly of the sea. Upon the banks, nameless forests grew untamed and verdant, and rich brown swamps opened up. Regardless of the approaching winter, these lands were still sun-soaked, though the leaves upon the trees were splendidly garbed in their most lavish browns and golds of late fall. Eagles swept down to snatch fish out of the water, the trapped victims struggling in black beaks that scraped their flesh raw.
The days rolled by until Jaden lost track. There were overcast days, the cry of the water-birds, the feel of the horse’s powerful muscles beneath his hands, and his aching thighs. Cold violet dusks, frosty blue stars, the addictive feel of Goldfire cutting through the air as they sparred, Agrenost urging them on relentlessly until they were swaying from fatigue. On Jaden’s fingers, his calluses were hardening into stone from hours spent gripping the reins or the sword’s pommel. Freezing black nights filled with the rustle of the surrounding forest, the ebb and flow of fireside conversations, Trystan and Scythe disappearing each night into the trees, uneasy sleep as the Shadowford loomed ever closer. And all the time, Jaden kept glancing over his shoulder and expecting to see the sensual gleam of Sarikin’s skin, or the figure of a lone Banelorian trudging through the woods, his frozen blue eyes filled with bloodlust. Was it time for the blood-oath to be fulfilled? He did not even want to think about what Trystan and Scythe had told them of their encounter with a stranger who could be the Winter King himself. If Arthorn knew exactly where to find them on a map, was there even a point in persevering? Jaden shook his head free of these cobwebbing thoughts and spurred the reins tighter, the horse galloping faster.
His past raced closer as the Shadowford grew nearer.
When, about two weeks later, the forest dissolved into withered shrubs and the River Knife narrowed into a dark glacial stream, Agrenost claimed they had entered the Plains of Carthage. Soon enough, they were riding through desolate gray moors, encased in smothering white fog through which Jaden could see only a few yards ahead before the mist swallowed everything else up.
There was a night on the plains when the fog had let up somewhat and they set up camp on the grasslands, the glow of their fire hidden from enemies by a looming barrow. Jaden and Agrenost drew watch that night after they had eaten their meager supper of roasted rabbit and a few thin apples they had filched from a farmer’s tree a few miles back.
