Why don’t they just kill me?
He surveyed the featureless cell for the hundredth time. The dungeon was deep underground with no windows, nor furniture or comforts of any kind. A bucket for waste and a pile of hay for sleeping which he no doubt shared with insects and rats.
He’d survive; this wasn’t the first time he’d been imprisoned, but he couldn’t ignore the pressure of his situation. The longer he stayed here, the more any chance of overcoming the Kanosee diminished, and the greater the chance Graymon wouldn’t survive.
“Let me out,” he said, his tone commanding and insistent, but it continued to receive no reaction from his guard. “Tell the Archon this is unacceptable.”
“I told you to do as you were told.”
Startled, Therrador jumped. He hadn’t noticed Hanh Perdaro approach along the dimly lit corridor. With a nod to the guard, he sauntered past and stood before the bars directly in front of Therrador.
“Hanh.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Tell me you’re here to let me out.”
Perdaro shook his head. “No. And I don’t know I would even if I could.”
“What?”
“You’ve been a bad king, Therrador,” he said in a tone suitable for chastising a child. “Perhaps it will do you some good to be on your own for a while. To think about what you’ve done.”
Therrador stared, unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth. “What are you talking about, Hanh? For the Gods’ sake.”
“Leave us,” Perdaro said over his shoulder and, to Therrador’s amazement, the guard strode away down the corridor, the clomp of his boots on the stone floor echoing after him. Perdaro faced Therrador, one corner of his mouth pulled up in a smirk. “Did you really think you could do the things you did and not pay a price?”
“I’ll pay for my sins after the Kanosee dogs are driven out of the kingdom and Graymon is back with me.”
“You don’t see it, do you?” Hanh Perdaro chuckled and shook his head. “What you’ve done cannot be undone.”
“Anything can be undone.”
“Not this. Her Grace sees all, knows all.”
Therrador’s eyes narrowed. “Her Grace?”
“The Archon. I told you to do as she said. It would have been safer for all.”
“Not for my kingdom.”
“The kingdom is lost,” Perdaro snapped, the smirk disappearing from his face. “Why can’t you see what’s right before your eyes? You’ve lost your son. You’ve lost your kingdom. You’ve lost.” He glanced down the hall at the guard, then lowered his voice. “It couldn’t have been any other way.”
Therrador grasped the cool steel bars with both hands and leaned forward until his face nearly touched them. Hanh Perdaro had always been his favorite member of the High Council, but he was beginning to doubt his judgment.
“If you have something to say, Hanh, say it.”
“You were never in control. Just as you aren’t now.”
“What do you mean?” He resisted the urge to reach through the bars, grab the man by his shirt and shake him to get straight answers out of him.
“You can’t possibly think you manufactured the king’s death on your own, do you?” Perdaro laughed. The guard looked away from the wall in front of him at Perdaro but quickly went back to staring at the blank stone. “The size of your ego never ceases to amaze me.”
Therrador bit back his emotional response. Years commanding men taught him to think before reacting. He breathed deep and waited for Perdaro to continue, as he knew he would.
“Didn’t you think it fortuitous when a Kanosee soldier fell into your grasp? Or that no one suspected anything when you inserted him as one of the king’s guards?” He chuckled again. “Wasn’t it unusual for Braymon to be at North Tower when the Kanosee breached the wall? What was the king doing on the first line of defense?”
Logic demanded that Therrador agree. More then once since this began, he’d wondered what the king was doing there, but had dismissed it as good fortune. It should have taken days, perhaps weeks, for the assassin to find an appropriate time to dispose of Braymon in a manner that seemed natural, yet the king was dead within the first twenty-four hours of the Kanosee siege. A twinge of regret shot through Therrador’s chest.
“You were so concerned about yourself, you didn’t see the machinations working in the background, placing the dominoes so they’d fall where they needed to fall,” Perdaro said.
“And you’re behind all this.”
“No, not I.” He caught sight of a cobweb clinging to his shoulder and brushed it away. “I’m not so naive as you to think I’m not simply one of the Archon’s pawns. But I’m a willing one while you were unwitting from the start.”
“Why tell me this?”
“Because it doesn’t matter now. Erechania has been muzzled, the Archon’s in control. It’s a matter of time until her plan is complete and Hanh Perdaro rules the kingdom.”
Therrador grimaced. “But one domino went astray, didn’t it? King Braymon’s blood yet survives.”
Perdaro’s expression became cool. “It’s the only reason she lets you live.”
“Well, thank the Gods for incompetence.”
“Don’t be smug.” Perdaro examined his fingernails. “The man will soon be found. When his life ends and the blood of the king is spilled for good, yours won’t be far behind.”
So they haven’t got him yet. Therrador suppressed a smile. There’s still hope.
“Why are you doing this, Hanh? The king was never anything but fair to you.”
“Fair? Why settle for fair when you can have the throne? Wasn’t that your attitude? Isn’t that how you became the Archon’s puppet?”
“I didn’t do it for me, I did it for Graymon. And Seerna.”
“Ha!” Perdaro looked toward the guard then back at Therrador. “Do you still think Braymon would have sent you away with Seerna ready to deliver a child? You? His closest friend? He thought you volunteered for it. And did you believe your wife would have named your son after the king?”
“You bastard.”
Therrador’s hands shot through the bars, grabbing Perdaro by the lapels before he knew what happened. The king pulled hard, slamming the man’s chest against the cell door, coaxing a high pitched shriek from him.
“Guard,” Perdaro screeched clawing at Therrador’s hands; the king didn’t let go.
“You’ll pay for this,” he whispered through the bars, their faces inches apart. “And tell that bitch she’ll pay, too.”
Searing pain in his thigh made Therrador release his grip. He stumbled away from the cell door, blood streaming down his leg as the guard’s spearhead pulled out of his flesh. Perdaro glared at him, the dead man standing blank faced at his side.
“You live on borrowed time, Therrador. For your own good, the good of your son and the good of your people, learn to behave.”
Hanh Perdaro-Voice of the People, member of the High Council, friend of the king, and now traitor to the kingdom-turned abruptly, his cape spinning behind him, and hurried from the dungeon leaving Therrador alone with the undead guard and the guttering torch.
Therrador lurched across the cell away from the door until his back struck the wall, then slumped to the floor. Thoughts and emotions boiled within him: grief, sadness, hatred. The Archon had killed his beloved and set him against his oldest friend. For six years, his thoughts and actions were not entirely his own, but the blame was. He hung his head and clamped his teeth together. Seerna was gone-he couldn’t bring her back-but Graymon was still out there somewhere, and a piece of King Braymon. But where?
There’s still hope.
He drew a deep breath and spent the next hours convincing himself it was true.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Branches raked at his face. Each footstep echoed in his ears, convincing him his pursuers were at his back, ready to reach out and grasp him by the collar, but Graymon didn’t look behind him. He didn’t want to know how close they were. Moonlight flickered through tree limbs; wind rustled leaves and swayed branches. Occasionally, the sound of waves rolling onto the shore came to his ears; when it did, he amended his course away from the beach.