The Sleeping King (15 page)

Endellian's gaze narrowed. Miralana—short for
gudeanandu
, a low-quality beast of burden in Maximillian's native tongue—never let her human form slip with the Emperor. But then, he was probably the only being in Koth who could truly hurt her.

Irritated at her own inability thus far to cow her adopted little sister, Endellian glided over to the woman. “Miralana. I did not feel your presence,” she purred as she rested a hand on the woman's impassive cheek. The faintest ridges of layered scales and the thinnest blush of blue appeared under her fingertips. Clever girl. How did you sneak up on me without me sensing your presence?”

“Does my ward displease you?” Maximillian inquired lightly.

That made Miralana's eyelids flicker briefly, for even she feared the wrath of the Emperor.

Without breaking eye contact with her sister, Endellian answered, “Not at all, Father. My sister merely makes a joke.” To her slave, she murmured low, “You never can resist poking at me, can you?”

“Yes, Mistress,” the woman replied emotionlessly.

Child.
Endellian sifted through the human thoughts shifting upon the surface of Miralana's mind. Nothing to be concerned about. But as always, the deeper, alien portion of the woman's mind was impervious to her probing. Sensing no immediate malicious intent, however, she backed out of her sister's rather unpleasant-tasting consciousness.

“It took no great insight to guess what Maximillian's purpose was in raising Miralana at Court. She would be an incredibly useful tool one day. Although the power required to wield her in the way Maximillian planned to was mind-boggling to consider.

Greed for the kind of might her father wielded pulsed through her. The kind that stopped entire armies with a word. That killed with a mere thought. That shaped reality itself with casual, brutal efficiency. Someday, she would have such power, and it would make her impervious to the threat Miralana posed.

Oh, Miralana would never turn against her or Maximillian. She dared not, for the Emperor knew her son, Kane, and where to find him. Ironic how Kane, an accomplished killer in his own right, should be so very vulnerable at the end of the day.

The obvious lesson of Miralana's position in the Empire was never to fall in love and never, ever, to indulge in offspring. If those things could bring such a being low, they were weaknesses a future Empress could ill afford.

The oracle was screaming again, this time in an even higher pitch and with greater intensity than before. Endellian recognized the sound of a mental invasion by her father. It was utter domination of the mind. Whereas Laernan tamed the will, Maximillian broke it. No one could resist him. She was told there was no more exquisite pain anywhere than when Maximillian stimulated every single nerve in the body to the most excruciating and unbearable agony. His victims were, of course, forced to remain fully conscious all the while, unable to faint, unable to die.

“Tell me!” Maximillian snarled at the hapless oracle twitching on the wall. “Who does this prophecy speak of?
Give me the name
.”

A liquid splat announced the moment when the oracle's body literally exploded.

“Revive him,” Maximillian ordered in disgust.

This oracle was lucky. As often as not, Maximillian simply ordered another oracle brought in and strung up. Or perhaps her father sensed special vulnerability in this one. She eyed the mangled corpse of the seer speculatively.

Laernan stepped forward obediently and forced the oracle's spirit back into its broken body, which the inquisitor also used his mental powers to repair just enough to sustain life's functions. Whimpering announced that the oracle lived once more. Meaningless babbling announced, however, that the oracle was not in his right mind.

“Enough for now,” Maximillian announced.

“Yes, Your Resplendent Majesty,” Laernan answered. “So shall it be. If I might—”

The Emperor cut him off. “Come, my dear. I am hungered.”

Personally, her appetite was ruined by the sight, smell, and general squishiness of the oracle's innards, and she made no secret of it as she took a mincing step over the mess on the floor and headed for the door. Maximillian swept out of the room with no further delay, for which she was grateful.

But as she nearly reached the exit, Laernan did something odd. He made direct eye contact with her, which was a blatant breach of protocol. She raised a questioning eyebrow. His urgent gaze darted to the broken oracle hanging limp upon the wall and back to her.

The inquisitor muttered low, “He has not given us the information we seek, but he has been speaking. Quite a bit, in fact.”

Prophecies?
“Interesting,” she responded carefully.

He nodded significantly in the affirmative.

She cast a wary glance at the door through which her father had passed. “I will return. Speak of this to no one.”

Laernan bowed in acknowledgment.

With a quick, resentful look over at Miralana watching passively in the corner, a suggestion of a scaled crest topping her skull and disappearing down her back, Endellian swept from the torture chamber, hurrying to catch up with her father before he noticed her delay. Miralana might tease her, but they shared the common bond of being their difficult father's children. The creature would not tell Maximillian of the brief exchange with Laernan.

*   *   *

Raina looked up and down the dim hallway, deserted for the moment. She had to escape
now
. Her mother would expect her to rant and wail for a few days against the whole idea of bearing babes for the Mages of Alchizzadon but eventually to bend to her will. No one stood against the will of Lady Charlotte for long; the woman always got her way. Therein lay her weakness. She would assume Raina would give in. And if she gave her mother time to employ the cajolery and bullying tactics she was so good at, Charlotte might very well be right.

She should go to her father for protection. He would never stand for what Charlotte and the mages had planned for her. Which made her frown. He would never stand for it. Her mother and the Mages of Alchizzadon must have altered his memory. Could they also alter his loyalties? If his mind had been tampered with, she could not trust him to aid her. He might turn her over to her captors instead.

Time. That was her greatest enemy. She must leave right away. Tonight, even. But where to go? How to escape the heavily fortified keep? She knew nothing of such things. Help. She needed help. Justin. As children, he and her brothers had forever been slipping out into the woods to play against the orders of their parents.

He should still be at the feast. She raced for the great hall, desperate to beat her mother there. Hopefully, Charlotte and her two henchmen would seek her first in her own chambers. Or mayhap the stables.

She slowed to a more moderate pace as she reached the kitchen. Grabbing a rough apron to cover the bright white velvet of her gown, she slipped into the hall behind a gaggle of servants bearing platters of bread. It was said to absorb the liquor in one's belly and reduce the effects of drunkenness. She looked around desperately.
There.
Justin was still at one of the long tables in the back, seated upon a wooden bench. She slipped onto the bench beside him, slouching low to avoid being seen.

Her father shouted a toast from the head table, and everyone around her hoisted a mug. Ale sloshed and the crowd grew even more boisterous as the mugs were emptied and refilled.

“Drink up, muckling.” Justin shoved a tankard of ale into her fist. “What's brought you slumming with the common folk?”

Someone guffawed and made a coarse comment about the Ladies of Tyrel marrying young because they hankered to lie with a man. Any man.

Raina stilled abruptly. Why not? What was to stop her from dragging Justin outside this very minute and lying with him? Even if she didn't make a child with him, her mother and those cursed mages would have to wait some weeks to find out for sure that she was not with child before they proceeded with their plan. It might buy her enough time to come up with another idea.

She leaned close to him on the bale of straw and placed a shy hand upon his knee as if for balance.

“What the—” Justin brushed her hand aside quickly. “No more ale for you,” he announced, alarm lurking at the back of his gaze.

She murmured under the din, “I need your help.”

“With what?”

“I need you to lie with me, right away. Tonight.”

His eyes popped wide open in shock. “What?”

“Surely you know what I speak of.”

“Of course I know!” he retorted sharply. “I was hoping
you
did not know what you spoke of.”

She spoke in an urgent whisper. “They want to feed me a love poison and let a stranger get a child on me.”

He stared at her in blank incomprehension. “Who wants to do this?”

“My mother. And those men. The Mages of Alchizzadon.”

Ever the quick one, he grasped immediately where she was going with this. “But if I am with you first, we might make a babe instead.”

“Exactly.”

“Raina, I can't. You're a daughter of Tyrel. And I'm—”

She cut him off. “—the one I would choose if I had to do this thing.”

“—and I'm a commoner. Besides, it is not honorable. It is not worthy of either of us.”

“You don't understand,” she wailed in a whisper.

“I cannot believe they'd really do such a thing.”

Panic erupted in her belly. He didn't believe her. The idea was too outrageous for him to accept. Had she not looked into Charlotte's eyes and seen her blind belief that she was doing the right thing, she would never have believed it herself. But she
had
glimpsed her mother's eyes. And she
did
know it to be true.

“Go back to the dais and your party, muckling. We'll talk on the morrow and sort out this misunderstanding. If it comes to being with you, we'll do it properly with your family's permission and our troths pledged.” A short pause and then he added, “But I am sure it will not come to that.”

Come to that?
He said it as if being with her were a worse sentence than slavery aboard an Imperial galley. Not to mention that marriage apparently would not interfere with their cursed plan in the least. Far from it, in fact. Despair burned wetly in her eyes. If Justin wouldn't help her, then she was truly alone. As strong-willed as she was, she couldn't hold out against them all forever. Particularly if they planned to imprison her and poison her.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered.

He squeezed her hand briefly, then gave her a little shove. “Go. Before someone sees you down here and we both get in trouble.”

Right. Go.

*   *   *

Ty backed up the hill, joining Will and his mother under the pine boughs. His father muttered, “If he has any inkling that I am nearby, Ki'Raiden will send out most of his men looking for me.”

“More likely he will come for you himself, my dear,” Will's mother answered as unflappable as ever.

Will whispered into the ensuing pause, “What in the Lady's great, green forest is going on? First Boki attack the hollow, then you cast humongous battle magic, and now you say the Boki are looking for you?”

“It is a long story. Another time, boy.”

Serica's whisper floated out of the dark. “No. Now, I think.”

“What say you?” his father responded in surprise.

“Think, my dear. Will must leave us. Now. Before Ki'Raiden finds us. You know the thane will not stop until he succeeds. Our son must take the quest with him—”

Will cut her off with a wordless sound of fury and fear. “How can you be so blasted calm when that monster's coming for us?”

“Quiet!” she snapped back at Will. “Quickly, my love. It is time. You saw him channel that magic. He is ready.”

“More than ready,” Ty grunted. “I can name on one hand the mages who can do that. And completely untrained, no less.”

If one of them didn't explain what was going on soon, Will was going to explode.

Ty continued quickly, “There is much you do not know of me, Son. I have not always been a cobbler tucked away in a tiny village.”

Will had to restrain a guffaw at that. This much he could figure out for himself after seeing that flash of deadly light from his father's fist. Not to mention the fancy armor and weapons. Will's parents huddled for a moment, whispering.

From the pine trunk at his back, a thread of … something … flowed. A faint energy. Awareness. Mayhap Mother Urth herself sensed and responded to his rage and disbelief. Living as he did so close to the land, he doubted not that the Green Lady lived and that her life's force flowed through all living things, binding them one to another in an endless cycle. So his elven mother had taught him, and so his own heart told him to be true.

But of a sudden he found himself wondering what was true and what false. Was everything his parents had taught him a lie? His world, so simple and orderly, had been turned to chaos in the span of a single hour, and nothing made sense anymore.

His father continued, “I have spent my life in search of truth, Son. A truth that will change the world. And now you must take up the search in my stead—”

His mother tensed beside him, interrupting, “Someone comes.”

Ty whispered urgently, “What do you hear?”

Her words were mere breath, the sound traveling only a few feet. A tracker's skill, that. “Boki. Scouting party. Four, maybe five orcs spread out in a line.”

Will gulped. If that many orcs found them, he and his parents were dead. Unless, of course, Ty's magic was sufficient to blow up an entire band of orcs.

Serica murmured, “They have acquired the countertrack I laid. They follow it now.”

She could track
and
countertrack? Will's jaw sagged stupidly as he stared at her shadowed face.