She felt the binding twitch, ever so slightly. It wouldn’t let her get drunk-she suspected it saw the inebriated state as a problem to be corrected like any other. Once, as an experiment, Sothe had procured a gallon of potent but awful liquor and Raesinia had downed the lot in a single sitting. All it had produced was a powerful need to visit the toilet.
There were only three people in Vordan who knew what kind of creature lurked underneath her masks. One was Raesinia herself, and another was Sothe, whom she had come to trust with her life. The third was the Last Duke, Mallus Kengire Orlanko. It was Orlanko who had intervened when Raesinia ought to have died. He’d called in his backers, Sworn Church priests in black cloaks and glass masks, and they had done something.
At the time, Raesinia hadn’t appreciated the brilliance of it. Now she understood all too well. The king had no sons, not since Vansfeldt, so what better way to keep the future queen under your thumb? Let even a whisper of the truth escape-that the princess was cursed, damned, not even human-and the mobs would be howling for her head, with every priest in the city egging them on. When the king died. .
Long may he reign. Raesinia took a pull from her mug. But he wouldn’t; anyone could see that. Already the city lived in fear of the duke’s Concordat, and the tax farmers squeezed the common folk to pay the Crown’s debt to Viadre. When her father died, Raesinia would ascend the throne, but Orlanko would be king in all but name. His northern allies would come seeking their rewards, and no doubt Raesinia would find herself married to some Murnskai prince, while Borelgai profiteers looted the kingdom and Sworn Priests burned the Free Churches.
And so Raesinia Smith had built her little conspiracy, step by step, lying to everyone. The depth of her betrayals-not telling Cora and the others who she really was, breaking her father’s confidences-roiled her stomach, but there was no other option. If Orlanko found out she wasn’t the empty-headed, pliable princess he thought she was. .
Cora laughed, and Faro grinned. Raesinia looked away from them and stared down into her mug. It’s not a betrayal, not really. We all want the same thing. Power in Vordan for the Vordanai, and the end of the Last Duke. No more tax farmers, no more Borelgai bankers muscling honest merchants into poverty. No more disappearances in the night and mysterious bodies floating in the river. No more screams from the depths of the Vendre.
It was the right thing to do. She knew it was. Even Father would understand that, wouldn’t he?
CHAPTER TWO
MARCUS
“By the third day, we were pretty much used up, and those big naval guns were knocking the place to pieces around our ears,” Marcus said. “If the colonel hadn’t turned up when he did, I doubt we could have held on until nightfall. Even as it was, things got pretty heated. I had to go out myself-”
He stopped. And Adrecht saved my life, and lost his arm. Adrecht, his best friend, who had later tried to kill him, and who was now a set of slowly bleaching bones somewhere in the Great Desol. Along with quite a few others.
Count Torahn, Minister of War, knew none of this. His jowly face was alight with vicarious martial excitement. “Splendid, Captain. Absolutely splendid. Have you thought about writing up your experiences in the campaign? Colonel Vhalnich will submit his official report, of course, but it’s important to have as many perspectives on the thing as possible. I’m sure the Review would jump at the chance if you did them a little monograph.”
Marcus tried not to grimace. “Thank you, sir. I think Giv-uh, Captain Stokes was trying his hand at writing something about it when I left.” He didn’t add that Give-Em-Hell’s memoir, titled Across the Desert with Bloodied Saber, seemed to be turning into more of an epic than a monograph.
“Wonderful. I look forward to reading it,” Torahn said. He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve always said that a properly led Vordanai force should be a match for any army in the world, eh?”
This last was directed at the other end of the little anteroom. Duke Mallus Kengire Orlanko sat in an armchair, stubby legs barely reaching the ground, flipping idly through an enormous leather-bound ledger. He looked up, spectacles catching the light from the candles and becoming two circles of pure light.
“Indeed, Torahn,” he said. “You have certainly always said so. Now if only our soldiers could learn to walk on water, the world would truly be within our grasp.”
It was hard for Marcus to believe that this was the infamous Last Duke, Minister of Information and master of the dreaded Concordat. He looked more like somebody’s cheerful old grandpa, at least until he turned those oversized lenses in Marcus’ direction. Then his magnified, distorted eyes became visible, and they seemed to belong to some other person altogether. Not a person, even. Eyes like that belonged on something that lived at the bottom of the sea and never ventured out of the shadows.
You sent Jen to me. Marcus matched the duke’s gaze as levelly as he knew how. You sent her and told her to do whatever she needed to do.
He’d always known Jen had worked for the Concordat, but somehow he’d allowed himself to believe-What? That she could fall in love with me? At the very least, he’d thought she’d finally been honest with him. Then, that awful night in a cavern full of monsters, she’d thrown it all back in his face and revealed herself to be something much more than a simple agent. Ignahta Sempria, the Penitent Damned, the demonic assassins serving an order of the Church that was supposed to have disappeared more than a hundred years ago.
Marcus had tried to kill her, in the end, but Jen had brushed aside his best efforts. Only Ihernglass, in some way that Marcus still didn’t understand, had been able to use the power of the Thousand Names to bring her down. When he’d left Khandar, she still hadn’t awoken, and Janus wasn’t sure she ever would.
“Are you certain?” she had said. “Are you-”
Count Torahn was saying something, but Marcus had missed it entirely. He smiled at the Minister of War and wondered how to politely ask him to repeat himself, but a click from the door saved him the embarrassment. Janus slipped quietly out of the king’s bedchamber.
“Well,” the Last Duke said. “I take it congratulations are in order.”
Count Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran bowed formally. For his visit to the Royal Palace he’d put on a formal uniform Marcus had never seen him wear before, a cross between his usual blues and something more appropriate for a courtier. It included a long, thin cape, which fluttered elegantly as he moved, and was trimmed in the bloodred and Vordanai blue that were his personal colors as Count Mieran. In his ordinary dress blues, giltless and patchy from repeated washing, Marcus felt like a beggar by comparison.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Janus said. “I will do my utmost to be of service to His Majesty.”
“Gave it to you after all, did he?” Torahn said. “I argued against it, you know. Nothing against you personally, you understand, but it didn’t seem a proper post for a military man. I’d hoped to use you elsewhere. Still, I suppose the king knows best.”
“I’m sure he does,” Janus said.
Marcus felt as if he’d come to class to find everyone else had studied for a test he didn’t know was on the schedule. Janus, as usual, had explained nothing, either during the uncomfortable journey or since they’d arrived at Ohnlei. He must have been able to see the confusion in Marcus’ face now, however, and he took pity on his subordinate.