The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price (40 page)

His dark stare shifted off Malaq and focused on me, just like I wanted. “Sorry, witch,” Draken said. “It’s Elayna for the stone.”

“No. It’s, you give me Elayna, or I kill you. Now. Tonight.”

“Reth would never allow that.”

Turning away, I crossed the room and Langorian soldiers slid out of the shadows. They crept closer as I moved to stand next to Malaq. “Reth isn’t here.” I reached over the counter and fished around behind it. Finding a good-sized bottle, I pulled it out and tried to make sense of the poorly scrawled words on the label. “Which means,” I glanced at him, “that protecting you isn’t high on his list.”

“If there is danger, he will respond,” Draken assured me. “At its simplest form, being
nef’taali
comes down to preservation and instinct. If I die, Reth suffers too.”

“Well there’s a bit of good news.” Popping the stopper out, I recoiled at the smell and took a sip. “I swear,” I said, my face contorting at the taste, “the damn Kaelish will drink just about anything.”

“I wouldn’t come here without protection, Troy,” Draken said tiredly.

Tilting the bottle at his men, I laughed. “These guys?”

Draken hissed. His patience was frayed. Mine had been in pieces before I even headed down the stairs. There was only one place this was going.

I looked at Malaq. Then I looked at his chair. He said nothing, but I knew he understood me. I also knew by the subtle twitch of his jaw, that he was pissed as hell.

I left the bottle on the bar and moved into the center of the room. “I want Elayna released, Draken. And I’m not giving you the stone.”

“Well.” He motioned to his men. “It seems that we are at an impasse.”

I gripped both swords and stripped them bare. “No, we’re not.”

THIRTY NINE

S
teel ruffled my hair. The edge of a blade rode along my left arm, splitting the sleeve clean-up to my shoulder. Another sliced through the front of my shirt.

Draken’s men had good aim and a hard swing. They were noticeably determined to see me dead. Nevertheless, having just dispatched five of them, it was clear they were too slow to get the job done.

My last challenger spared a glance at the bodies of his comrades on the floor. Fear tightened his gaze as he wiped the sweat away and re-settled his grip on his sword. Still, being Langorian, he flashed his best spiteful, contemptuous smirk, let out an abrupt battle cry, and ran at me.

He launched himself forward. As the man drew back to swing, his boot slipped in a wide streak of gore on the floor. Over extended, balance gone, his feet went out from under him, and he landed hard, about ten feet away, with a loud, “oomph” on his back.

“That was quite a move,” I praised, laughing. “I’d clap, but,” approaching, I held up both swords, “my hands are full.”

With a wince, he sat up. Sweeping a mass of matted, dark hair out of his face, the man glared at my weapons. His gaze swung to the space between us, measuring it, trying to decide if he could get up before I killed him.

“The answer is no,” I said. “But you’re welcome to try.”

He thought about it. Then, in an abrupt, surprising move, he dropped his sword. Lowering his head, he raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.

It took me about two breaths to decide what I thought of it. “Tell me, soldier. If I was there and you were here…what would you do?”

His head lifted. We locked eyes. His mouth jerked with an ugly, thick-lipped grin. “I would spill your stinking Shinree insides all over the floor.”

“That’s what I thought.” I kicked him in the jaw. He fell backwards and I shoved both blades in his chest.

Yanking them out, I lobbed a satisfied grin at Draken. Sitting sideways in his chair to observe the fight, he gave me a hard scowl and turned back around. Malaq, standing beside the hearth, had been watching too. He wore no expression whatsoever.

I put my swords away and joined them. Passing Draken, I ripped the drink out of his hand and drained it. As I was feeling particularly tetchy, I threw the mug into the fire and put myself directly in front of him. “Guess that just leaves you…Your Grace.”

He gave me a patient, sparse smile. “I didn’t come here to fight you, Troy.”

I put my hands on the arms of his chair and leaned in. “Then you won’t stop me from taking the head off your shoulders?”

Firmly, Malaq said, “I will.”

I sighed. “This isn’t about you, Malaq. Walk away.”

“I’m sorry, Ian,” he said. “But I can’t do that.”

Pushing myself off Draken’s chair, I faced him. “Don’t make it come to this.”

“My Lord,” he said to Draken, “with your permission?” Draken nodded and Malaq clamped a hand on my arm. I didn’t shove him off. With all we’d been through together, the man had earned a measure of leeway, so I let him steer me to the base of the stairs at the far end of the room.

There, out of Draken’s hearing, my charity ended. “Watch yourself,
Nef’areen
,” I warned, shaking out of his hold. “You are about to draw lines between us that won’t be easily erased.”

“And you’re letting rage make you reckless. You’ve shown Draken you aren’t as weak as he thought. Now, it’s time to back off. You’ve made your point.”

“I’m pretty sure my point won’t be made until it’s sticking out the other side of your brother.”

Malaq pinched the spot between his eyes like it ached. “Ian…”

“Draken needs to die.”

“Not today,” he whispered.

“And why the fuck not? He’s right here, right in front of me.” I shook my head. “No. I’m not doing it. I’m not letting that man walk out of here alive.”

“You have to. There is too much at risk.”

“You don’t understand.” Memories of Neela lent a shaky, strangled sound to my voice. “You don’t know what those dreams have done to me.”

“You’re right. I don’t. I don’t know because you didn’t tell me. But your inability to put faith in anyone, including yourself, isn’t the issue right now.” Malaq’s voice lowered even further. “If you leave Langor without a King, it will fall under military rule before I can even get there. Without a real, legitimate change in leadership, and a new direction, my people won’t stop, Ian. They won’t let go. They’ll rise again in another ten, twenty, or thirty years, and they will keep rising until they are shown another way. Unless, of course, you’re willing to do worse than before and wipe out every man, woman and child of Langor, wipe them all out so there is no chance of war ever happening again?”

It wasn’t a dare. It was quite the opposite, actually. It the most preposterous scenario Malaq could imagine. He truly believed I could never commit such an atrocity as to destroy the entire Langorian race. He believe it so strongly, I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was wrong. “You expect too much of me,” I said.

“I expect friendship.”

With an angry grunt I broke away from his harsh share. Putting my back against the side of the bar, I looked up at the darkened stairwell and wished I had never gotten out of bed. The sentiment worsened as Malaq pursued me.

“Look, Ian,” he said. “We both want the same thing. But killing Draken prematurely will only make my push for peace that much harder. And we may never get Elayna Arcana out of Darkhorne alive. You can’t tell me that isn’t important to you.”

“Of course it is. But even if Draken does have Elayna, he won’t let her go.”

“I will. When I’m King I will free Elayna and any other Rellans my brother has locked away. I will put right all the wrongs my family has brought
to this world. You have my word.” There was an abundance of strength and purpose in Malaq’s voice. And I wanted to believe him. I wanted to put my faith in the man more than I had any other in a long time. He had a way of inspiring hope and fostering devotion that was his own, special kind of magic.

But how long would his conviction and charisma last in a place like Langor?

“Malaq,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You are the son of a Langorian King and a Kabrinian Princess, raised by a Kaelish Prince. You are the perfect balance of war and peace, of soldier and diplomat. If anyone can accomplish such a feat as to change nature’s course and turn Langor around, it is you. But if Draken lets you live to sit on the throne at Darkhorne, it will swallow you. And when it spits you out, little will be left of the man you are now.”

“Brother!” Draken bellowed then from across the room. “We need to be going.”

My grip on Malaq tightened. “Tell him no. Let me kill him. And I will get you on that throne.”

Malaq gave me a long, hard, completely unreadable stare. He was about to answer when Draken shouted over to me. “You might like to know, Troy, that I have a man upstairs with a blade to your young messenger’s throat.” He paused to let the picture form. “If you want him to continue breathing, I suggest you back down.”

With a snarl, I started toward Draken and Malaq grabbed me. “Stop,” he said. “Think about what you’re doing.”

I tried to throw him off. “I’m fucking killing him is what I’m doing!”

“Let him go, Ian.” Malaq struggled to hold me back. “Let us both go. Do you really want to risk Jarryd’s life for this? Ian!” he said again, forcefully, because I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t even looking at him. I had too much fury and turmoil running through me to focus on anything except whether or not I could live with either choice.

Letting Draken walk out of the Faernore alive; it felt so damn much like giving up—on Neela, on my own need for vengeance. Yet, if I let Jarryd die, I was turning my back on someone who would never turn his back on me. I
would be forsaking the bond we might make before it even happened. And that was like giving up too.

“Son of a bitch.” Grinding the anger down between my teeth, I waved a brisk hand toward the door. “Get him out of here. Before I change my mind.”

Malaq gave Draken a crisp nod and released me. “You made the right call, Ian.”

“Did I?” Watching Draken make his way over with a triumphant smile, I scowled at Malaq. “This is the last goddamn time I stay my hand for you, Prince. Are we clear?”

If Malaq had a reply, he kept it to himself. With me on one side of him and Draken coming to stand on the other, he looked a little stunned. Being stuck in between us wasn’t just a concept anymore. It was a cold, hard fact.

Looking exceptionally satisfied, Draken let loose a gruff, Langorian command in the direction of the stairwell. A moment later, we could hear heavy footfall striking the floorboards above. The sound hit the top of the stairs, and as Draken’s guard descended, I measured him to be much the same as the rest of his ilk: big and meaty with enough dark hair and ugliness that the details weren’t important.

Then his stare fixed on me. It was brimming with a kind of mischievous, almost perverse sense of gratification. Coming closer, the expression turned outright malicious as he lifted the dagger in his hand and held it in front of his face. Immediately, my attention was drawn to the distinctive Shinree runes etched along the glistening-wet blade and the set of brightly colored stones adorning the hilt. The stones were a particular combination, inlaid for one purpose only: the ritual binding of souls.

I started to form an accusation. But all I could think of was,
how?
How was it that a
Nor-Taali
blade, an ancient Shinree ceremonial weapon that was never meant to see combat, made its way to a rundown tavern on the edge of Kael? More confounding was how this specific one was here—because it was mine.

When I went to war, I left it (and a handful of other belongings) in a Rellan village, in the care of a friend. I never bothered claiming it after, and I hadn’t meant for Katrine to guard it with her life. But knowing full well the
feisty girl would rather die than deal with a Langorian, I knew exactly what the bastard had done to get it from her.

I just needed to hear him say it.

The soldier reached the last step. I pushed off the wall and blocked him. “How did you get that?”

He lowered the dagger from his pockmarked face and grinned. “It was a gift.”

“Katrine wouldn’t give shit to a pig like you. What did you do to her?”

“Nothing the bitch didn’t enjoy.”

“That bitch is my friend.”

“Your
friend
was a dirty, tavern tramp that begged for more.”

Knuckles clenched, I raised my arm to hit him, and a drop of red slid off the tip of the dagger. Time seemed to slow as it dripped to the floor.

It sped up again as I looked back to the blade and the implication sank in.

The soldier sneered at the look of comprehension on my face. “Your other friend, upstairs, he didn’t beg for more, but I gave it to him anyway.”

I punched him. Not once, or twice. I drove my fists into his unsightly face until it looked like a bowl of meat and his legs buckled. Whimpering, begging for me to stop, I grabbed the bastard’s head and brought my knee up into his throat to make him shut up. Then I hauled him to his feet and hit him some more.

“Troy did as you asked,” Malaq said; his distraught voice in the background. “You said Kane would not be harmed.”

“How nice to have earned your trust so quickly, brother,” Draken chuckled.

Shoving my opponent away, I started up the stairs. I made it up two before pain struck my leg and I went down.

“Ian!” Malaq called out.

But it was Draken’s voice that shook the walls. “FOOL!” he roared. Rushing up to the battered soldier, Draken seized him by the throat and lifted him off the floor. “You were charged with delivering Troy’s property to Reth, not pilfering it! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

His sputtered, raspy reply was unintelligible. But his answer, like the question, had no purpose. It wouldn’t reverse the fact that the man had buried the
Nor-Taali
dagger deep in my right thigh. That blood was pouring out
around the edges of the blade, soaking my breeches and streaming down my leg. Or that it hurt like hell.

Stealing myself, I wrapped a hand around the grip of the weapon. I needed to get it out, but I hadn’t counted on the aura of the stones reacting so promptly to my touch. The second my skin made contact, a rapid surge of magic spread out from the stones beneath my fingers.