"Why did you bring me here to see this?" I asked.
"Bastilla thought you might be interested in my stone dragon, since Hurog was once the home to dragons." He smiled suddenly. "Do you know that the emperors had dragons in their service? I am the first since the ancient times to own a dragon."
He was the first what? Emperor? He did not have his empire yet.
I nodded thoughtfully. "Tell me, Your Highness, how do you intend to return Hurog to me?" There was no need to fake my feelings for my home; doubtless even the impassive-faced soldiers heard my lust.
Kariarn laughed, "Directly to business. Why the change of heart?"
"You expect me to lose face before my brother? Eventually, he'll come around to the idea that I did it to save Hurog. But it will take time for him to adjust. I know the Tallvenish king will never return her to me, and I have little love left for him after he killed my cousin. My question is: What is your price?"
"Nothing you cannot pay," he said quickly, afraid his fish would slip the hook. "You will give me loyalty and taxes as you now do to Tallven."
"I've made vows to Tallven," I said letting the thought trouble my brow as if I'd just realized what accepting Kariarn's help would mean. "A Hurog does not break vows."
"No one holds to vows that are already broken," he said. "Jakoven Tallven broke the bonds his ancestors forged with Hurog so many years when he stole Hurog from you on a whim. You owe him nothing."
I let my jaw harden as he spoke, then widened my eyes and let them go soft and sad. "He did. Just as he allowed your armies to ravage Oranstone after he took away their means to defend themselves. Such a man does not deserve to be king."
"How easily you give away your honor, boy," said Garranon. His voice was thick with tears and anger.
"How dare you speak of honor to me!" I roared in my father's best manner. "You took away my Hurog, and why? So that your traitorous little brother could escape Ciernack's slap on the wrist? A punishment your brother well deserved. Perhaps if you let him accept the responsibility for his actions just once, he wouldn't have ended here. I will not hear talk of honor from Jakoven's whore." I wanted Garranon and his lady to escape tonight with Oreg and Tosten. With luck, Kariarn would never believe I'd lifted a single finger to help them.
"Take Lord Garranon and the lady back to their previous quarters," ordered Kariarn sharply.
Garranon narrowed his eyes at me, his anger a smoldering flame that momentarily blotted out the terrible agony in his eyes. His voice was a whisper that carried through the room. "Unlike you, my brother was no traitor. He owed no oath to Jakoven, and he wanted freedom for his people. He was guilty of stupidity and shortsightedness. You add greed to his list of faults. I hope I live long enough to see you feed the basilisk."
He caught my gaze as tightly as ever the basilisk could, holding my eyes until the guardsmen dragged him from the room.
Kariarn patted my arm. "You are no traitor. Jakoven is no king of Shavig or Oranstone. A real king protects his people."
I tilted my chin up and turned back to the king of Vorsag. "You are right." I said decisively. "No king who deserves that name would do so little to protect his people. Now, what are you going to do about Hurog, and why are you interested in it? Hurog has no wealth."
"No, but she has great power. And I'm not speaking of just the dragon bones. Ciernack tells me that when your uncle defied the king after he killed your cousin, all of Shavig marched to his tune."
"Well, of course." I said as if it hadn't surprised me to hear of it. "Hurog is a proud name in Shavig." I let the thought collect visibly. "Oh, I see. Through me you'll control Shavig. But that won't work if they know that you put me in control. Shavigmen don't like the Vorsag."
Kariarn smiled. "I knew you were smarter than Landislaw. What if we make you the rescuer of Hurog? Defending her from her foes. We'll kill your uncle, and then you'll return and take his men, driving us out of Hurog—after I get the dragon bones."
"And welcome to them," I said in an absent but truthful tone. The dragon was dead, and it was the living I had to protect. "But do we have to kill my uncle?"
"He took Hurog from you, Ward. He deserves no mercy."
I took in a deep breath, as if steeling myself to a difficult task. "You're right. Yes, I'll do it. But what about my brother? I won't have him killed."
"That's not necessary—if you can convince him to follow your lead."
I nodded. "I think I can bring him around."
They cleaned and bandaged the arm Penrod had wounded before the guardsmen escorted me ever so courteously back to my cell. Even the locking of the door was done with an apologetic air. They did not reattach me to the wall. The cell had been cleaned while I was gone; stale, musty straw was replaced by fresh, flower-scented rushes.
Tosten was sitting in the corner of the room, his knees up and his head buried against them. The light from the small window high over our heads didn't let me see much more. I'd been consumed with my private guilt, having watched a man die without lifting a finger to prevent it; but my brother's state pushed that to the background.
"Tosten?" I asked. But he didn't look up.
"Bastilla healed him," said Oreg from behind me. He startled me, but it was as much the anger in his voice as the sudden appearance.
"She crawled inside my mind," Tosten whispered. "I couldn't keep her out. She stole my soul, and I couldn't stop her."
Frightened, I looked at Oreg, who shook his head and said, "No one stole your soul, Tosten. You can give it away, but they cannot steal it, not even by ruse."
"Gods," Tosten moaned.
I put a hand on his shoulder.
He stopped rocking and looked up at me. "What happened to you?"
My mind flashed back to the basilisk, and I swallowed bile. "Is there anyone listening?" I asked Oreg.
He tilted his head a moment. "Not by magic."
"Kariarn took me to watch his basilisk eat Landislaw whole. It just engulfed him, like a snake eating a mouse." Even saying it made me feel ill.
"Why didn't he chain you up again?" asked Tosten, who knew who Landislaw was but had never met him, leaving him unmoved to the boy's fate.
"Because he wants Shavig, and he thinks Hurog will sway the other Northlanders, something we may have to thank Duraugh for," I answered, glad to change the subject. Much better to worry about Kariarn than to continue to think about Landislaw slowly dissolving inside the basilisk. "Give me a few moments to think."
They were silent as I ran through possibilities in my head.
There was a game that my aunt taught me to play once. It involved taking a skip-stone board and imagining all the possible combinations of play.
Kariarn was leaving for Hurog very soon, and Garranon and his wife would be dead before Kariarn left: He could not afford to leave the Lord of Buril alive. So Oreg would have to get them out of the keep.
Kariarn's abrupt delay of his plans for Oranstone after Bastilla brought us here puzzled me. Kariarn couldn't have had a better setup to take Oranstone. But Haverness might discover Kariarn's people here anytime. And Kariarn was going to risk that in order to get dragon bones out of Hurog?
Obsessions, I thought, this is all about obsessions. Kariarn wanted magic more than he wanted Oranstone. "What will he do with the bones?"
"Bastilla thinks drinking powdered dragon bones could make her the most powerful wizard alive," said Tosten. "She was gloating over it."
"What would it do for someone who could not work magic?" I asked.
"It could turn him into a mage for a time," answered Oreg. "But he'd have to continue consuming the bones to keep his powers. Eventually, it would kill him."