The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy) (29 page)

“What
if Linstrom had chosen a different path to vengeance? What if he’d gone after
the king’s pet sorcerer, as I called myself, before news of the plot reached
Rexson? He’d have slaughtered my entire family. Harren, dead at seven. Dalen at
three, probably as he whimpered for his murdered mother.”

Vane’s
bowl remained balanced on his legs. He was sober enough not to create a liquid
mess for someone to clean up, but threw his empty wineglass against the wall,
well clear of Thad, who jerked up and away from it nonetheless. It shattered
with a satisfying, high-pitched clang and sprayed the rug with shards. Thad
walked up to the duke and took his soup bowl from him, placing it on the desk.
Vane did not try to stop him.

“I
wondered what it would take,” Thad whispered. “When Amison couldn’t break you,
after gutting you…. I should have realized it would be your children. Them in
danger.”

“I
shouldn’t raise them here. It’s unforgiveable, me doing that.” Vane swore
beneath his breath.

“You’ve
done nothing unforgiveable, nothing wrong at all. Those children could not be
blessed with a father more watchful or more caring than you. One more involved
in their lives, more determined to do the absolute best for them he can. Vane,
you’re to eat that soup.”

Vane
finally chose to protest something. Thad would not hear him out. “You’ll eat
that soup, because you need sustenance. You need to keep your strength up for
what’s ahead. After you eat, you’ll return to Oakdowns in my carriage, because
I’ve never seen a man look so depleted. You won’t waste energy transporting.
After that, my carriage can return here with your children, and they’ll stay
with my family for as long as you deem wise. As long as you feel Oakdowns is
threatened.”

Vane
could not express his gratitude. He merely nodded, and flushed redder in shame
over the broken glass. Thad peered at the cluster of shards. “It’s lucky your
three-year-old didn’t see that little fit. He’s never been one for tantrums, I
understand, but any youngster as small as Dalen would have to deem that a
challenge, sure as a tossed glove.” He then glanced at the soup on the desk,
and raised an eyebrow. “Eat. You must eat, Vane. Must I threaten again to bring
Hune here and trade you for one of his dogs?”

Good-naturedly,
Vane flung his first spoonful of soup at his best friend’s face. The dish was
meant to be served cold; it wouldn’t burn him. Both men collapsed in laughter
as Thad’s nose and cheek took the bulk of the hit, and Vane chuckled all the
more when he imagined August’s expression if she could see him now. She’d raise
her hands to her mouth in horror until she lowered them to chide.

You’re a DUKE, Val!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Linstrom’s New Plan

After
her promised hour in the garden to make sure Linstrom kept from Vane—the
cobbler stitched boots as he waited for his work partner—Kora ate dinner
in the new room she was to share with Kansten. August served broiled chicken
and stuffed mushrooms, a Podrar specialty, to mother and daughter, and as they
ate, Kora forced herself to speak nothing of the royal family. She swore she
wouldn’t, though she believed the king’s fears about Hune were justified.

Most
days Kansten was quick to start conversation, but not that night. Though she
responded to her mother’s questions about Oakdowns, and Podrar, and how August
was carrying on (extremely well), she introduced no topics for discussion, and
Kora suspected she would have liked to enjoy her meal in silence. This despite
the curiosity that should have been devouring her: What had Kora learned with
the chain? How had Vane fared? What was he doing now? Something had Kansten
distracted, or more likely, some
one
.

The
chain revealed nothing of note after dinner, besides Linstrom’s continued
ignorance of Vane’s errand. Lottie made no attempt to warn her lover about the
Duke of Ingleton; Vane’s latest task, Kora surmised, had been successful. The
duke proved her right around ten o’clock, when her sound barrier disappeared
and he came in to assure her all had gone to plan. When he left, Kora put the
sound barrier back up, mostly so that no servants could stumble upon her in the
night. The spell would seal the door more securely than any lock.

Kansten
ceded the bed to her mother, but Kora didn’t sleep. Her time with the Crimson
League had taught her the value of physical stillness when her mind wandered
restless in the dark, and in locations far less comfortable than the mattress
on which she now lay: barn lofts, woodlands, the dirt-floored basement of a
derelict cabin. Knowing she would never forget how she’d determined to kill
Linstrom for the king if need be; sure her daughter’s heart would soon belong
to the prince, if it did not already; doubtful of her courage to send the king
away, should he return to speak with her; terrified her sons, her brother, or
Vane would come to harm before this fiasco drew to a close: all these
contemplations gave way to a different wondering, a wondering she cultivated
because it didn’t make her stomach twinge like all the previous.

This
place had been Laskenay’s home. Vane’s mother and Kora’s mentor, the duchess
had known happiness here for a time, though nothing approaching the full life
she’d deserved. She’d envisioned herself growing old at Oakdowns with her
husband at her side, and her son, with other children to follow. Instead she
had found herself widowed, without her infant, fighting to destroy not some
nameless, unknown force that had thrown the kingdom all atwitter with its
unexpected regicide, but a brother who had dispossessed her of everything.

The
emotional significance of that loss had always struck Kora, but in all these
years she hadn’t once considered its physicality. The soft fabrics of gowns
such as August’s, and linens like the sheet on Kora’s bed; the taste of stuffed
mushrooms and tender cuts of meat, of the best wines available; the calming
fragrances that wafted from herb bowls in the parlor, or from the gardens
through open windows; the sight of familiar artwork in a favorite room; the
sounds of servants bustling to and fro, cheery as they went about their work,
straightening up the knick-knacks on a table or loading a tray with the
leftovers of the morning tea: Laskenay had lost all that in an instant. All
that had been the least of the woman’s griefs. Not once had she spoken a word
of such things, not to Kora. She had worn stained and ill-fitting frocks
appropriate for a farm girl, slept in forests without a tent, and subsisted on
“meals” of ill-seasoned vegetables, fruit overripe, and nuts, always nuts, without
the slightest complaint. Kora had grudged the physical discomforts of life with
the Crimson League not a little. Had she known this place, lived in this place
before falling so hard and so fast….

Laskenay
had died in the Crimson League’s final campaign, but she needn’t have. Like
Kora under exile, she could have taken to the sea. Upon word of her brother’s
coup, she could have taken her infant son to the coast and paid passage on any
ship bound for Triflag Bay or another Traiglandian port. The woman had been a
duchess; payment would not have escaped her means, nor would her brother have
been able to detain her. He’d contained word of his coup before expanding his
power, and his sister, warned by Rexson, had used that blessed time to travel
not from Herezoth but to Fontferry, a small village northward where she’d left
her child in the care of an innkeeper.

What
thoughts had plagued Laskenay, to bring her to choose that course? Why forsake
the chance to escape with little remained of her family? Had she been unwilling
then, as Kora was now, not so much to let her loved ones die without her as to
let them kill? Had she known she must take revenge, lest her son grow to take
it for her?

Kansten
had used chair cushions to create a makeshift mattress on the floor, where she
slept no better than her mother. She judged Kora sound asleep, though, and
tossed as she thought of Hune. Two certainties battled for prominence in her
mind: the first, that the course of action she’d chosen regarding the prince
was unwise; the second, that she would continue down that path until she knew
where it brought her. Back to Traigland, in shame and sorrow, seemed a likely
destination.

Hune,
she had no doubt, had halfway given his heart to her, as her uncle had warned.
Uncle Zac knew the princes. He’d foreseen this, but Kansten had ignored his
admonitions. She now worried the major draw to her, for Hune, was her lack both
of noble birth and control over her tongue. The first classed her with nearly
every girl in the kingdom, and would never be enough to hold his attention. The
second was hardly a virtue, especially where royalty was concerned.

Clearer
to her were her thoughts about him. She appreciated, quite simply, that he’d
already sacrificed some time for her in the midst of aiding his brother. He’d
entrusted her with opinions he could never give publicly, and somehow, hardly
knowing her, he’d placed a finger on her greatest doubts about herself and
sought to ease them, all without coming across as superior, judgmental, or
pitying. He too had no magic in a family of empowered individuals. His elder
brothers overshadowed him, just as Kansten had always imagined Walt and Wilhem
towered over her.

She
wished she could be speaking to Hune now. Could speed the passing of the hours.
After all, he could lose interest in her in two weeks, or two months, and she
yearned with a feverish intensity to know whether he would. If all she
represented to him was an escape from his princely duties, then he would tire
of her company when he discovered a maid or cook with whom he could speak
freely.

That
gave Kansten a jolt. Hune had a valet, no? Surely, some servant had gained his
friendship and his faith enough that the two spoke freely. It seemed impossible
he had no one to confide in. And then, that kiss…. Why kiss her when he had, at
the moment she’d expressed a conviction against forming attachments? Had he
wished to calm her fears by showing her the sky would not fall in when their
lips touched? If their hearts should meet? Or had something within him pushed
against the restraints in his life, so that he’d seized the opportunity to
strike back in whatever way he could? So Kansten could see herself doing in his
place.

She
needed to see him again. Once she knew him better, she could better judge these
things. Until then, she refused to envelop herself in some imagined fairy tale;
she had never been a fanciful girl. Discovering she lacked magic had taught her
early that life was not romantic, and romantic expectations would only crush
her. Though not exactly cynical—she had never dreamed Herezoth would be
as dangerous, as unwelcoming as it proved—she had never been an unguarded
idealist, and she and Hune, were they to be together, would have strong
barriers set against them:

Kansten’s
mother would be horrified, would immediately envision the worst that could come
to pass. Kora would read assassination, civil unrest, or some other disaster
into a relationship with Hune.

Hune’s
family, Kansten could only assume, would never support the match. What did Hune
or Herezoth stand to gain from a woman like Kansten?

Then
there were Linstrom and the public outcries against sorcery he could reignite.
The timing for a prince to marry into the family of the most infamous sorceress
of the age could not be worse.

There
were long-standing laws, from centuries past, prohibiting marriage links
between anyone five steps removed from the throne and common blood. Hune was
third in line. The king, of course, could suspend those laws upon his slightest
whim, but why should he?

Kansten
turned to her side with a slow exhalation, full of dread. Her eyes popped open,
though she saw little in the dark despite the soft, yellow glow of her mother’s
sound barrier. The room was too large, and Kansten too near its center for the
walls’ light to dispel the nearest shadows.

Far
too early to entertain thoughts of marriage, she decided. She almost wished
Hune would push her away, and soon; she almost hoped he would realize he loved
not her, but the thought of striking against the boundaries his birth imposed
on him. He was an honorable man. Once aware of that motivation, he would never
abuse Kansten’s feelings or her time, and Kansten almost found herself praying
neither one of them would wish to pursue a relationship.

Almost.

* * *

Kora
found old habits much harder to kill than Zalski’s ambushing soldiers had been.
She was up before dawn, like in the old days, to toss that monstrous chain over
her head and make sure Linstrom was not already awake and causing trouble.
Unfortunately, that was the case.

He
had slept poorly. His thoughts were sluggish, and the dark circles beneath his
eyes were more prominent than on the previous day. He wore a loose-fitting
nightshirt over his stocky frame, and maintained a state of forced calm as he
combed every inch of the office beside his workshop. Kora needed half an hour
to piece the situation together from a snippet of thought here, a reflection
there, but soon, her blood was running cold.

Unable
to rest as he admitted Terrance might have died in that fire after all,
Linstrom had considered the Yangerton assault: or the Yangerton problem, thanks
to Lottie’s worthless nephew. He’d decided that attacking the theater district
would make his point as surely as demolishing the Central Plaza, with the
benefit of endangering the boy less. Since sleep escaped him, he had gone to
his office for a map of Yangerton.

He’d
told himself he imagined the flickering light, as from a candle, he saw filter
beneath the door, then disappear, until he’d entered to find all the maps he
had drawn of the plaza, all his notes for the Yangerton attack, out on his desk
with drops of wet wax on them.

Linstrom
had surprised someone rooting through his office. A sorcerer, who had scampered
off at the interruption, and not just any sorcerer: the Duke of Ingleton. Who
else could it have been? Terrance would not have fled. Hang it all, Terrance
would have let Linstrom know he lived. The only conclusion was that Ingleton
had been here. The king was on to Linstrom, which meant the time to act was
now. This day. This evening, when his troops already planned to meet at sundown
at the Hall of Sorcery.

Impossible,
now, to wait for newsletters to print word of the king’s deceit. Purposeless
too. If the king had Linstrom figured out, then the articles would cast no
doubt as to who was behind his riots; Rexson Phinnean would never blame
sympathizers of the ignored sorcerer applicants. Linstrom had to assume that
Ingleton knew everything: the decoy plot against Partsvale, the genuine plan to
attack Yangerton first. Everything. Well, Ingleton would regret sticking his
noble-born nose in a real sorcerer’s business. Linstrom would take his assault
to Oakdowns. That would impact the public less, but deliver his message loud
and clear to the kingdom’s tyrant, and to all Herezoth when Linstrom moved on
from there.

“Wh…?
Mom, wha…?”

“Get
up, Kansten.”

“Mom,
it…. It’s still dark.”

“Thank
the Giver that’s the case. That it’s this early. We need every second we can
get. Vane’s here, isn’t he, at Oakdowns? Go wake him.”

“Mom,
I….”

“He
needs to go for the king. There’s no time to waste with horses, not when he can
transport.”

Kansten
only then noticed the chain that still hung on her mother’s neck. She bolted
upright, so suddenly she nearly slammed into Kora, who bent over her.
“Linstrom’s at something? At this time of day?”

“Kansten,
go!
”

Fifteen
minutes later, Vane, August, and the king were in Kora’s room with her. Kansten
they had sent away, to the girl’s (thankfully silent) chagrin. The duke had
thrown on a clean but rumpled cotton shirt and fitted trousers. The king was
dressed much the same. August had changed her nightdress for a sundress, a far
cry from her gowns of the days before, and her blonde curls she had pulled back
in a sloppy bun. Kora had done the same with her darker hair, and changed into
a clean housefrock.