Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (33 page)

“My Sovereign, I …” Amenon began, but his voice drifted off mid-sentence.

“Do not think I will be swayed in this,” the Sovereign said, and an air of unrelenting harshness came to his voice through a hissing noise. “Your own son displays more aptitude for bringing hard, fearsome truths to me than you have demonstrated. If there were even a whisper of possibility that Shrawn’s plan were true, you should have brought it before me knowing that I would want to be informed.”

“It was rumor only,” Amenon said, rather weakly to Terian’s ears. “I had no proof, not a hint of it. I did not wish to waste your time with mere whispers of dubious certainty—”

“And that is why you are not sitting in the most favored seat in all Saekaj,” the Sovereign said. “And it is why you are about to lose your position to General Grennick.”

Amenon bowed his head, but Terian could see the shock. “Grennick.” He said the name in resignation, complete and utter.

“Grennick will be the General of the Armies,” the Sovereign said, hard voice lashing them across the room. “This will, of course, require some additional … recalculations.”

Amenon’s head came up and Terian saw the dazed look on his father’s face, something he had never seen there before. “My Sovereign?”

“The Shuffle, Amenon,” Yartraak said. “The manor you have inhabited this last century—it is time to move … down.”

Terian felt the heat in his face but said nothing.
The Shuffle … we just got moved down … that’s never happened …

“You have disgraced us both this day,” the Sovereign said. “You have played me false, underestimated and failed to inform me. You have let a pernicious element into my army unchecked, and I see no other alternatives. You will move to … number twelve.”

Twelve. That’s not so bad. We’re still on the main road. Last in line there, but still, not quite as far back as the square—

“Your wisdom is unquestioned,” Amenon said, but his voice was dull and bereft of life. “I will make my preparations.”

“Perhaps it’s been so long you might have forgotten,” Shrawn said, and Terian locked eyes with the elder dark elf, “but you bring no furniture with you, not even that which you might have used your wealth to purchase. Your clothing and personal possessions are all that come with you to number twelve.”
Rub it in, you dirt bag son of a bitch.
Terian stared him down and Shrawn smiled.
Your day will come.

“I have not forgotten the ways of the Shuffle,” Amenon said, his voice coming near to cracking. “I have not forgotten any of our ways.”

“Oh, good,” Shrawn said. “I had thought perhaps your ascent had been so rapid that you had never felt the halting of momentum.” The sound of amusement peppered his reply. “I simply wanted to prepare you for the sensation of falling.”

Terian heard a noise of gentlest amusement from the Sovereign. “Return to your old self, Amenon. You do neither of us any favors by feeding me only what you think I wish to hear.”

“I will not refrain from telling you every rumor that comes to my ears henceforth,” Terian’s father said, his voice bereft of any emotion.

“Though I think you’ll find it somewhat harder to get an appointment to do so going forward,” Shrawn said, almost gleefully.

“I place you in charge of the Eighth Army,” the Sovereign said. “Now go, and disappoint me no further.”

“My Sovereign,” Amenon said, partially turned to leave. “The special operations group you’ve had me assemble for you …”

“Oh, yes,” the Sovereign said. “You will continue in that same capacity, unless you prove incompetent to keep their loyalty.” Terian felt the heat of Yartraak’s red-eyed gaze fall on him. “Then, perhaps I might turn to your son to carry out my orders with them.” There was the sound of a breath being drawn, louder and different than the breathing of any creature Terian had ever heard. “You impress me with your bracing honesty, Terian Lepos. Show your father what he has forgotten. Guide him back to my good graces with your straightforward fearlessness of speaking your mind. Learn from his experience. Now, go, both of you, and claw your way back to my attentions.” The Sovereign waved a three-pronged hand at Terian, then Amenon, and bid them go.

Terian bowed once, sharply, at the waist, still holding his tongue as he watched the Sovereign seat himself once more. He turned his head to avoid staring at the peculiar way in which Yartraak moved and fell into step beside his father. He tried to slow his pace to walk behind him, but when he did, Amenon sent him a tired look. “Walk beside me,” his father said, voice almost a whisper. “For we are linked in the eyes of the Sovereign now; your fortunes rise as mine fall and are the only thing that have saved us from falling farther.”

Terian felt a sudden pain in his chest, in his guts. “Father, I—”

“Say no more,” Amenon said, waving him off. “We have preparations to make. A house to move.” His father’s face looked hollow, beset with worry. “A defeat to manage.” His voice was soft, quiet—and Terian knew his father spoke a truth he had never before considered.

Chapter 48

“These are grim proceedings,” Kahlee said to Terian as they stood outside the old manor house. The drip of the cavern ceiling had slowed, a mere trickle here and there to mark the end of the flooding waters. Terian wondered how the Back Deep was afflicted, if it was still under inches of water. He gave that only a moment’s thought, though, with his wife standing at his side. “To see this house—our house—humbled so …” Kahlee’s head fell, and her jaw stuck out slightly. The faded blue strands of her hair, the white beginning to show through the dye, fell over her eyes.

“It’s happened before to your family,” Terian said, numbly. Guturan Enlas was shouting orders at the servants. The entire avenue was in motion, with clothing being shuttled back and forth between manor houses by the help. Everyone else was being shuffled up, the House of Lepos was being shuffled back.
Number twelve. A crushing fall indeed
. Terian turned his eyes toward the direction of the square, where the manor houses ended at numbers eleven and twelve, and turned into smaller homes built in rows.
Still, it could be worse.

“But I wasn’t there to see it,” Kahlee said, turning to look at Terian. She brushed bluish strands of hair out of her face and laid her hand upon Terian’s arm. He heard the click of her fingernails against the armor. “My father has invited us to remain here, to stay with him as he moves up.”

“I think my father would see that as an insult,” Terian whispered. He cast his gaze down the cobbled drive to where Amenon stood by the gate, standing sentinel upon the exodus of House Lepos from the manor they had inhabited for over a century. He did not turn his head, nor watch anything, merely stood, dead-eyed, as servants moved into and out of the gates. “I don’t think he’s tasted this sort of defeat before. I don’t know if he’s prepared for it.”

“There is no preparing for it,” Kahlee said, matching his motions. They both stared at Amenon as Olia approached him, hands shaking. She spoke to him, too softly for either of them to hear, and he did not react. “Your father has ascended his whole life, moving from victory to victory against incredible odds to become not only the foremost dark knight in Saekaj and Sovar but also the head of the army. To be thrown down so harshly over something he had so little control over …”

“The Sovereign doesn’t see it that way,” Terian said, lowering his voice and his head. He stared at the cobbled stones on the drive and at the edge where they met the hard stone and rocky gardens. “He views it as something he gave my father dominion over that failed. When it happens that way, the blame goes to the man in charge. There is no flexibility in his worldview.” Terian sighed. “And in strictest terms, he’s right. My father is in charge of the army, and in the Sovereign’s world, there is no room for a failure of loyalty in the army. Too much rides on their loyalty being unquestioned.”

“All hail the Sovereign,” Kahlee said out loud, loud enough to catch the attention of two servants passing by. She exchanged a look with Terian, a subtle glance that told him she was lying, lying full and fair. As if to prove his point, she leaned in to speak in his ear. “If the rumors are true and there really are ten armies, there is no possible way that one man could oversee legions of that size. There are Colonels, Majors and Lieutenants in the chain above that squadron who are far more deserving of punishment than your father.”

Terian leaned in to his wife’s embrace, and whispered in her ear. “And every one of them is now dead.” He waited until she recoiled, staring into his eyes, her own wide. He watched her throat bob as she swallowed. “Not by his orders,” Terian said, and caught a hint of her muscles relaxing. “The new General of Armies issued them after he took charge. I saw the couriers running down the street with guard squads and executioners following behind.” He pursed his lips. “It was a tense moment, until we were sure they’d passed us by.”

“You thought it would fall upon—” Kahlee’s mouth hung slightly open.

“When you earn the Sovereign’s disfavor, can you really expect any less?” Terian asked with a gentle smile.
He tried to starve out his own people in some ill-designed scheme to increase the army’s enlistments. Killing his generals when they piss him off is hardly shocking behavior from such an … individual.

“I suppose not,” Kahlee said. The stream of servants had grown smaller. One passed him now with the portrait from his father’s study in hand, the ornate frame gripped tightly as he paraded it past. Terian stared at the subject, at his sister Ameli, her face, as the painting passed him. A sideways glance told him Kahlee was doing the same. “You never talk about her anymore.”

Terian gave that one a moment. “Would you? If you were me?”

“No.” There was a pause, followed by hesitation. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

Terian nodded because there wasn’t anything else to say.

Guturan Enlas appeared out of the front door a moment later, straight-backed, hands clasped behind him. “I have very nearly gotten all of the trinkets and other assorted minutiae out of the manor. Little enough remains now that you should prepare your father to move on your way.”

“I’ll work on that,” Terian said, sensing a hint of acid on his own tongue. “And what about you, Guturan? Are you coming with us or do you stay with the manor house?”

“I stay with the manor house, of course,” Guturan said a bit quickly. “Though I suppose you did not know that, having never experienced the Shuffle.”

“Well, I’m experiencing it today,” Terian said, stifling the snap of anger he felt ready to burst out at Guturan. “Perhaps next time, things will be different.”

“Things are always in motion, Lord Terian,” Guturan said, remaining oddly stiff in his delivery. “For the good of some and the ill of others, things must always remain fluid. The Shuffle keeps the old blood of Saekaj always fresh, lest it become coagulated and still. For one to rise, another must fall; always remember that.”

“Do you doubt I’ll ever forget it after this humiliation?” Terian asked, nearly growling. He felt Kahlee’s hand land on his arm, avoiding the spikes on his armor.

“There is no humiliation in being beaten by a superior foe,” Guturan said, cocking his head almost quizzically. “We would not consider it an embarrassment for a suited dandy with a dueling cane to be killed by a titan in single combat, would we? We would simply say they were … overmatched.” He let the thin hint of a smile filter through. “The last century has let much old blood settle in Saekaj. Now that the Sovereign has returned, the veins must flow again … and sometimes that means opening them so that the old blood can drain out.”

“That’s funny,” Terian said, feeling more than a hint of fury. “Sometimes when you let the blood out, you kill the body.” He felt his wife’s hand on his arm, restraining him. He did not resist her, instead taking her hand in his and moving toward the gates to the manor.

“Lord Terian,” Guturan called after him, as he was halfway down the drive. Terian turned back, and saw the servant’s smile had disappeared. “He was simply overmatched.”

With traitors like you advising and serving him, I don’t doubt it.
“You should be careful when you bleed someone,” Terian said, looking back at Guturan. “You just never know exactly how much is going to drain out before it stops.” He turned his attention back to his wife, who met his gaze with a thin smile and a nod. Together, they walked toward the gates where his father waited, now moving, slowly, Olia’s hand in his, toward where they would pass from the only home Terian had ever had in this place.

Chapter 49

Sixteen Years Earlier

“He was completely overmatched,” Terian said, feeling the beat of his heart, pulse racing, chest fit to burst with pride as he told the story. “Bereneck Dorrnd is the top of the class at the Legion, and I cut through his defenses in training as though they weren’t even there, afflicted him with the Lockjaw curse, and took him to the ground.” He felt the smile break over his face. “It was beautiful, Ameli. You should have seen it.”

“I just have,” Ameli said, and Terian watched her stifle a yawn. “You’ve described it in intricate detail. I feel as though I was there. And bored.” She cracked a grin of her own. “All this fighting, you know it tires me. Because I’m a delicate little cave cress, according to the dictates of our society.”

“I get the sense you’re mocking me,” Terian said, raising an eyebrow. “And our society.”

“It provides such rich opportunity,” Ameli said. She was not so small anymore, he reflected. Lately it seemed she grew a few inches every week. She was over his chin now, but that sparkle in her eyes had yet to give way to any hint of maturity. “I am provided of no self-restraint in expressing myself. You, on the other hand, have nothing but restraint in that regard.”

Terian felt his smile evaporate. “I recognize the bounds, Ameli, and I stay within them.”

“You recognize that speaking your mind and letting fly with the jests your heart desires to make would wreck your considerable ambitions,” she said, with just a hint of sadness. “I have no ambitions to wreck, you see, so there is no reason for me to contain my wicked wit. What’s the worst that can happen? I’m not wed to someone in the House of Shrawn because I am possessed of a sharp tongue?” She clapped her hands on her cheeks. “Oh no! Sovereign forfend!” She laughed, her sarcastic delivery echoing in the sitting room they occupied.