The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy) (12 page)

“Francie,”
said Vane. “I was with Francie. Rexson, they abducted her. They would have
slaughtered her, but she’s alive. I managed to keep her so. My cover will be
blown if we don’t announce her death, and tomorrow.”

Vane
explained the day’s developments. He spoke of Terrance’s diversion and
Francie’s ordeal, of the decision to start the assault at the Partsvale
guardhouse, and of Linstrom’s vow not to desecrate the Shrine of the Giver. He
suggested the crown plan a quiet evacuation of women and children from
Partsvale, by transport, in the hours before the attack. Then, and last of all,
he spoke of Linstrom’s motives.

“He
claims you denied consideration to every sorcerer interested in the Magic
Council. He’d swear it on the Giver’s Shrine, and his sorcerer supporters say
the same. They say they all applied, all twenty of them, and none received a
response from you. I can make no sense of it, Rexson. I perused the stack of
applications after interviews. Every hopeful was considered, and there wasn’t a
sorcerer among them. Not one, except for me and Zacry.”

The
king looked as puzzled as Vane felt. Hune seemed at a loss for words, he was so
confused.

“Your
Majesty,” Vane said, “forgive the question, but you didn’t somehow…. You didn’t
misplace the applications in question? Perhaps purposefully?”

The
king replied, “I’m not that foolish.”

Vane
swore, “I believe you. But I don’t understand. Linstrom’s grudge runs deep, and
I can promise you, it’s genuine. What could explain…?”

A
female voice spoke from the corner. From the chair where the queen had
collapsed at Vane’s entrance. “I’m responsible,” it said.

Vane
turned his head to Gracia, and nearly gawked. He had never seen her arm shake,
or her cheeks flare up to that unsightly dark shade, or her gaze seek the floor
instead of the person she addressed. All three occurred just then.

“This
is my doing, on my head alone, though it seems the axe will fall on others.
Rexson, I told your secretary you desired me to read all council applications,
so that later, at your convenience, you and I could discuss them. I was
curious. Nothing more than curious. When the first arrived from a sorcerer,
though, my blood began to boil. It had been a sorcerer, a sorcerer from that
cursed Enchanted Fist who took my sons from me. Blackmailed us.

“Those
wounds were still fresh. You know the horrors we endured: the risks we took to
rescue the children, how uncertain success had seemed. I couldn’t look at that
application without turning weak from fear at the thought of a sorcerer gaining
and abusing your trust. I threw the packet in the fire. Every subsequent one
from a sorcerer, I burned them all. The other applications I resealed and had
brought to you. You never knew I’d seen one of them.”

The
room was silent for a good ten seconds as the queen paused, awaiting some kind
of response. When she received none, she continued, still studying the rug:

“There’s
no excuse for what I did. Had I known what would come of it…. I’ve threatened
the peace of your kingdom, Rexson. Vane, I’ve put you in great danger. August
and your children too, perhaps, the Giver protect them! Francie Rafe, I’ve
destroyed that’s woman’s life, and she’s the most dedicated member of any
council I’ve had the pleasure to meet. That poor woman! I….”

Vane
told the queen, “Francie will recover, in body. There’s a doctor with her now.
Her spirit will take longer to heal, I suspect, but she’ll get on, Gracia.
She’s resilient.”

Hune
said, “You didn’t harm Francie, Mother. You had no hand in Linstrom’s doings,
and those doings are unjustifiable. They are, no matter what explanations he….”

“I
should have foreseen what could happen, Hune. We both know that. Everyone in
this room knows that. Gratton’s always been wary of magic, always, and not even
he can speak a word in my defense.”

Rexson
told his wife, “What’s done is done, and Hune’s right. Misguided as your
actions were, there’s nothing in them to justify abduction, rape, murder, and
the terror and destruction of a village, perhaps multiple townships. You need
to accept that, Gracia. You need to hold your head high through this, because
Herezoth and I will need your support.”

Gracia
still could not look at a soul. “I’ll try.”

Rexson
lifted her head with his hand. “You’ll succeed,” he told her. “For the good of
Herezoth, you must. If you feel responsible for this crisis, then you must find
the strength to confront it like the rest of us. That’s only just. Consider it
penance, for it’s the only way you’ll learn to live with yourself once this is
done.”

Gracia
nodded. Rexson’s hand left her chin, but her posture, her gaze, they held
steady as the king asked Vane his thoughts regarding a preemptive strike
against Linstrom at the Hall of Sorcery. Vane considered the proposal.

“It
makes sense to bring the battle to him there, if we can. The trouble is his
numbers. If they’re ever all together…. We’d need enough sorcerers to transport
two hundred soldiers, more in a best-case scenario.”

Rexson
said, “The Enchanted Fist has recruited no sorcerers since we arrested their
leadership for the kidnapping. I asked the Quins.” The queen lowered her eyes
once more. “With you and Zacry, and your sorcery instructor: you’ll go to them
tomorrow, Vane….”

“I
meet with Linstrom in the morning. I can go to them after.”

Gratton
asked the duke, “How old would your school’s first sorcerer graduates be? We’ll
need them.”

Vane
racked his spinning, aching head. “The first three would be around twenty.”

The
king said, “That’s four from the school. You and Zacry make six.”

The
Duke of Ingleton groaned. “That’s a third what Linstrom has. If we had enough
support, though….”

Rexson
asked, “Could the six of you transport two hundred men?”

“In
waves, perhaps. We could set up an ambush in the Hall. There’ll be no waiting
outside, or we’d freeze to death.”

To
Vane’s surprise, Rexson smiled. “I know, son. I’ve seen the Hall of Sorcery.”

Gratton
reminded Vane, “Linstrom has two hundred supporters himself. If tonight
revealed a pattern, they shouldn’t all be at the conference in the Hall you
break up. What of the others?”

“I
don’t know,” said Vane. “I just don’t know. Listen, I’ve got to get back to
Francie. Gracia, write August in the morning that you’ve spoken with me and I’m
safe. That I’ll be going for Zacry, and he’ll go a long way to helping set this
right.”

Gracia
forced herself to look Vane in the eye. The act cost her a visible effort. “Of
course I shall.”

* * *

While
Vane met with the royal family, Kansten was lying in a guestroom at Oakdowns,
unable to sleep despite the fact that her bed was three times as comfortable as
the one she used at home. She kept thinking of her family, and her brothers in
particular.

Kansten
had realized, leaving home, that she’d always disdained her brothers to a fair
degree. Jealous of their magic—Hune’s assertion of her envy was nothing
surprising or unknown to her—she had turned up her nose at their
dismissal of Herezoth. Allowed herself to feel superior on that account.
Kansten might have no powers, but at least she had no intention of snubbing her
family’s true home: the place they belonged, as anyone could have told them and
the crueler of Kansten’s schoolmates had reminded her often in her youth.
Somehow, in reading history books and staring at maps, a complete image of
Herezoth had escaped her. Her Uncle Zacry, he sat on the Magic Council but
never discussed the challenges of his work, at least not in front of his nieces
and nephews. Vane visited often but was equally tight-lipped. He brought
stories about his children, and gifts, and asked about Kansten’s latest scrapes
or accomplishments. Kansten had never suspected the depth of all he’d endured
in the last ten years.

Trapped
with August all day, Kansten had asked questions, and Vane’s wife had jumped at
the opportunity to speak of anything other than her husband’s present
adventures. She’d been forthright about the past: the protests Vane had faced
when he’d joined the Magic Council; the hundreds of death threats he’d
received; the attacks on his property, once he’d slain the Duke of Yangerton in
self-defense, that Oakdowns had only withstood thanks to Vane’s magical
protections around the manor. Yangerton would have killed Vane, had Zacry
Porteg not been present to stop his bleeding out.

August
explained they had placed the Magic Council’s school, an institution for the
magicked and magicless to learn together, in her mansion in Carphead because no
one else would support their goal. Vane was a private person, but he’d released
the particulars of his early life before the school took in students, to draw
attention to himself and away from the audacity of the Magic Council’s project.
Seven years after it first opened its doors, the Count of Carphead still
loathed Vane on his academy’s account, for the controversy it had brought to
his feet.

Kansten
had always admired Vane for returning to Herezoth. Had never understood why her
Uncle Zacry refrained from doing likewise, or why her blasted brothers claimed
time and again they had no interest in the place. She had never come close to
understanding what Vane’s life was here: how hard he pushed himself, what
threats he still endured, how little credit anyone was willing to give him for
his trouble. Now, Kansten found herself full of confusion and conflicted
emotions when she thought of Vane. She respected the man still, perhaps more
than ever, but why did he suffer this? Didn’t he realize he could have stayed
in Traigland? Was it a matter of pride?

Herezoth
itself had been needed to break Kansten’s arrogance and derision in the face of
her brothers. All that had occurred since her arrival, every bit of it had
chipped away at Kansten’s armor, at the shell of self-importance with which she
had coated herself all her life. Walten and Wilhem, she had grown up thinking,
were fools. They didn’t understand where they came from like Kansten did. They
didn’t have the wits, or the courage, even to be curious. Kansten might lack
their sorcery, but Herezoth refused to call the sorcerers. It was Kansten
Herezoth beckoned, and Kansten, despite her magical impotence, had felt
powerful and secure in that knowledge. She had deemed it an honor.

Now
Herezoth had ripped away the power and security she’d imagined for herself. She
could make no sense of Vane and his existence in this festering kingdom, of his
insistence to raise his sorcerer children here. Walten and Wilhem, they no
longer seemed fools to Kansten. Why wouldn’t they turn their backs on Herezoth?
What had the land of their parents’ birth ever given them, besides a peaceful
childhood in Traigland because of their mother’s exile from Herezoth’s shores?
Herezoth would never welcome any Porteg. It certainly hadn’t welcomed Kansten.

“You know, I heard Kora Porteg of all people’s
responsible for this.”

“The coat of arms? I’d believe it. Guess the
sorceress is one of
those.
”

The first
conversation Kansten had the luck to overhear, and it was nothing but insults
against her mother. Against the woman who had saved this place, who had risked
her life for it and been thrown out instead of thanked when Herezoth no longer
needed her protection.

Wilhem and
Walten had been the sensible ones all along. The ones with the instinct to
recognize Herezoth’s true nature. The ones with magic. The ones with bloody
magic….

They were
the gifted ones. So what did that make Kansten?

* * *

As
Hune left his father’s antechamber to head toward Valkin’s, he stopped
momentarily as his head spun, supporting himself against the wall. Then he
moved on. Vane’s revelations had jarred him, but not as much as the queen’s; he
would have to tell his brothers they had discovered Linstrom’s motive.

Unlike
the king, who preferred his office, Valkin used his antechamber as a personal
study. His desk was strewn with papers, quills, and inkwells, and his shelves,
attached to the stone walls, overflowed with books stacked one atop the other.
Loose documents had fallen to the floor.

Valkin
and Neslan were sitting in chairs when Hune entered, chairs they had turned
from the hearth to face the door. They beckoned Hune to a third, and he told
them, “The good news first. Vane’s fine. He came as planned.”

Neslan
said, “There’s bad news?”

“He
explained why Francie Rafe missed that meeting with the Quins.” Hune related
Francie’s abduction, and then the queen’s startling admission. The youngest prince
could never imagine his brothers at a loss for words—Valkin was so
hot-tempered, Neslan so eager to offer his opinion on any and every
topic—but Hune’s update left them silent. The tension was as thick as the
summer air when Hune ran out of things to say, and the three young men stared
at one another, all looking some strange mixture of awkward, horrified, and
angry.

Eventually
Neslan said, “By the Giver’s drum….”