When he opened his eyes, the night was a thousand times blacker than it had been before. His face and hands were burned, and his eyes ached. The fleeing audience still filled the night with their screams, and King Tracian had fallen unceremoniously on his ass to Marcus’s right. The thin priest and his dozen men lay blackened and charred on the stones. Inys bent down as if to smell one, then took the corpse between his vast teeth and chewed it thoughtfully. Marcus heard Kit’s voice, soft and reassuring, speaking over King Tracian’s panic-filled gabble. Marcus leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and permitted himself a chuckle.
“The corrupt are everywhere,” the dragon said. “So long as they are, chaos will follow them.”
“Yeah,” Marcus agreed. “Picked up on that.”
From behind the dragon, Cary came with the Jasuru cunning woman behind her. A moment later, Yardem Hane loped into the square, the poisoned sword drawn in his massive hand. The Tralgu slowed, the point to the green blade drifting down toward earth.
“Took too long,” Yardem said as he reached Marcus’s side.
“Appreciate the effort.”
“Still.”
“Life’s full of disappointments,” Marcus said. “Might want to put that thing away.”
Yardem sheathed the blade as Inys lifted up a second corpse and began eating it as well. A glow of fire lit the dragon’s mouth from within like a paper lantern. Marcus stepped across to where the king was only now rising to his feet.
Marcus made a small, ironic salute. “That’s two you owe me now, Majesty.”
Geder
Sitting in the drawing room of Lord Skestinin’s mansion felt strangely eerie. Geder half expected to hear the cunning men still chanting over a death-grey Sabiha, to see Lady Skestinin with her smile stretched tight by her fear. But outside the window, the trees were the deeper, warmer green that came before autumn. The servants in the hall spoke with laughter in their voices. The divan where Geder had slept on those long, terrible nights had been reupholstered in yellow silk to match the new window coverings. Those signs were enough to remind him that the season hadn’t been a dream, that it was not summer that was coming in the weeks and months ahead, but short days and bitter cold.
He wore his field gear. Black riding boots, black leather cloak with the hood tucked back behind him. His horse waited outside in bright barding and his personal guard in chain and armed for war.
His decision to lead the force to Kaltfel had been a clear one to Geder and Basrahip. Not all of his other advisors had seen it that way. Canl Daskellin in particular had argued against it.
“You are the Lord Regent,” he’d said, pacing the length of the war room, placing his feet carefully among the mountains and swamps of the miniature empire. “Your duties, and with respect, your responsibilities to the kingdom go far, far beyond leading a force to put down an uprising. If something happens to you in the field—”
“It will not,” Basrahip said, but even his low, rolling voice wasn’t enough to take Daskellin from the thread of his thought. Not all at once, at any rate.
“If it were to, the court is scattered across the face of the world. We could not convene a council big enough to name a new regent. Not for weeks. Maybe months. You are more than yourself, my lord. You are the state.”
“I won’t get hurt,” Geder said. “I’ll be very, very careful. All right?”
“He’s the Lord Regent,” Emming said, scowling at Daskellin. “If he can’t do what he deems best for the realm, then what’s the point of having him?”
Geder nodded his thanks to the older man, and Emming returned the gesture with a bow. Daskellin lifted both his hands, shaking them as he bit his lips.
“I understand why you would want to address this firmly, my lord,” he said. “But I beg you to consider the risks you are taking. The kingdom is… in a delicate situation. There are many, many things that require attention, and the potential for crisis is great. I fear… I fear…”
“Say it,” Geder said.
“If we lose our Lord Regent,” Daskellin said, “I do not think we will be able to keep the kingdom from insurrection.”
“I think you overestimate my importance,” Geder said, though in truth they were pleasant words to hear.
“With respect, it isn’t you as a man, Lord Palliako,” Daskellin said. “It’s your role. Even after what happened in Suddapal, there are many who think of you as a hero. The man who stopped the Timzinae. Who protected the throne. Now, who defeated the dragon. If you sat in your bath for the next year and did nothing else, your presence here would still give the realm a sense of stability. And we are losing that. There are three armies in the field now. Four, counting this new group. The belief that there is a man on the throne who sees and manages all of it is keeping the realm from flying apart.”
“In other times,” Basrahip said, his voice rolling out like a distant thunder, “all these things you say might have been true. But this is the age of her return. The answer to the fire years. The end of the fallen epoch. Prince Geder is the chosen of the goddess. He cannot fail.”
“I understand that,” Daskellin said. “It’s only that—”
“He will not fail,” Basrahip said, shifting his weight and attention forward. His smile was gentle and wide. “Listen to my voice, friend Canl. He cannot fail. The last battle has begun, and Prince Geder will be there at the birth of the coming world.”
Daskellin opened his mouth, closed it, and looked away. He nodded his acceptance and then laughed ruefully. “I suppose it’s only that I’m used to normal wars. This really isn’t one of those, is it?”
“It is not,” the huge priest said. “For at the end of this war, there shall be no others forever.”
“Well,” Daskellin had said, pressing his toe against the tiny version of Kaltfel, “I suppose that’s worth being present for, isn’t it?” And that had been the last anyone had said of Geder’s staying behind when the soldiers departed for Kaltfel.
A soft knock came at the door, and Lady Skestinin took half a step in. Geder rose and bowed to her, not a full bow. That would have been too much. Just a little angle at the shoulders, enough to honor the lady of the house and the family she was heading now that her husband and son-in-law were gone.
“Lord Regent,” she said. “When I heard you’d come, I hoped there might be news. Anything would be welcome.”
Anything. Even confirmation of her husband’s death. They both knew that she stood there more likely widow than wife. The sorrow and anxiety barely showed. In truth, he couldn’t say how he knew. It wasn’t in her voice or the expression in her eyes or the way she held her body. It was in her, the whole of her.
“I’m sorry,” Geder said. “I’m expecting word from Jorey anytime now, but no. Nothing yet.”
“Ah,” she said, twisting at her own fingers without seeming aware she was doing it. “I understand. I’d only… Well, yes. Thank you all the same.”
“I wanted to see Sabiha before I left. And the girl. Annalise. In case I see Jorey again before I come home.”
“Oh,” Lady Skestinin said. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
“Anything’s possible,” Geder said.
He had come to Lord Skestinin’s mansion as his last stop before the little army decamped for the westward march. Before that, he had gone with Aster and Basrahip to review the troops, such as they were. The encampment was outside the city walls by the western gate. They were three full cohorts and part of a fourth, but only five bannered knights and no cunning men besides Geder’s own. The throne had called for men so many times that those still left to answer this call were weedy youths and old men, the injured of old campaigns who had healed enough to march and slaves of half a dozen races who had been offered their freedom in exchange for fighting on the empire’s last battleground. To call them ragged would have been kind, but as Geder and Aster rode past them, they stood as proud as a seasoned army of the purest blood.