by Anna Eluvae
"Yield," said Dravus. He pitched his voice to the crowd. "I don't want to kill you."
"Kill me?" asked Kendrick. He laughed, though he could scarcely draw breath. "You've already killed me. My heart's been pierced, and that's the end for me."
Dravus hesitated. "Wenaru can save you, if you yield." He kicked out with his free foot and sent Kendrick's rapier spinning across the stage.
Kendrick laughed again, though his laugh was hollow. "Prove that I have no convictions? Prove to everyone that I don't care about my country so long as my own life can be saved?"
"Better to live and fight than become a martyr," said Dravus.
Kendrick turned to the side, and it took Dravus a moment to realize that he was crying. "My father," said Kendrick. "Fine, let the bastard prove himself." This last was said so quietly that Dravus was sure he was the only one who heard.
Wenaru came onto the stage with timid footsteps. There were boos from the crowd. Kendrick tried to get to his feet, but Dravus's boot was still in place.
"Let him up," said Wenaru. "Eversong, for what happened to your father, I am truly sorry, but I hope that with time you can understand."
Dravus allowed Kendrick to stand up, and watched the scene carefully. He had won the duel, just as planned, and having fought it there was little doubt in his mind that it wouldn't have gone that way if it had been more natural. Still, there was something wrong with this scene. He kept his sword drawn, and waited. He halfway expected Kendrick to attack, and readied himself for it. People began to come out from behind the stage, with Nemm and Lexari among them.
"Something is wrong," said Nemm. She stood next to Dravus, with her own daggers out and ready for danger.
Wenaru approached Kendrick slowly.
"You will never be anything more than a monster," spat Kendrick. "Never anything more than someone's dog. For all that you present a false front, people will see through it. Pretending at being a moral creature will never make you one."
Wenaru reached out a hand. Dravus saw the danger; if two men with bodily domains touched each other, both would be at each other's mercy. Kendrick might be able to killed Wenaru, even if it would have to come at the expense of his own life.
They touched, only briefly, and Kendrick jerked backwards, screaming in pain. His head hit the stage, and he went still, just as everyone exploded into action. Kendrick's entourage swarmed his body, picking it up and taking it out of the way, while everyone else moved with weapons drawn.
"I didn't," said Wenaru. He stood with his hand still in front of him and a shocked look on his face. "He did it to himself, he —"
"We need to move," said Nemm.
* * *
Kendrick was carried down into one of the many rooms beneath the theater floor. His body had gone completely limp, and he was having trouble keeping from smiling. There had been two significant points of risk with the plan; the biggest was the risk that Dravus would kill him outright, but at a close second was the risk that this deception would be found out. Wenaru's reaction had helped matters tremendously; Kendrick had been counting on the fact that the damage he'd done to himself with the surge of blood could be felt through Wenaru's domain sense. It really had hurt, but help was on the way, and testing had shown that so long as Kendrick could keep renewing the vital essence of the blood in his brain, little else mattered.
Clarence laid him out on a table, and Kendrick stood up slowly and achingly once the door was locked. "A martyr," he said. "I've always wanted to be a martyr, but better not to have to die to do it."
"You are dead," said the cloaked figure, standing in a corner of the room. A pretty young woman stood beside him, one that he hadn't been seen with before. "Kendrick Eversong is no more."
"Yes, yes," said Kendrick. He'd only rarely met another person who insisted on so much theatricality in private, and he could see how it would be trying. "A new identity awaits, and a life in the Iron Kingdom."
"Are you injured?" asked the man.
"Yes," replied Kendrick. He looked down at his shirt. "I might have overdone it with the blood a bit, but I think I can move about. Nothing that will kill me when I'm not awake to keep the blood moving. If I can be seen to by a doctor, that would be for the best." He laughed. "You know, I think that Wenaru was going to do it?"
The cloaked figure nodded. "He follows a moral code."
Kendrick shook his head, but it didn't really matter if the benefactor had his quirks; the Council was being supported either way, and Torland would soon be free of the Flower Queen's influence.
* * *
They stood around a thick table in Grayhull Palace: Lexari, Nemm, Dravus, Wenaru, Darkheart, and the halfway gone Flower Queen. No one looked particularly happy, save for the Flower Queen.
"It was a play for the audience," said Nemm. "We just didn't know the punchline. Easy enough to figure out after it had happened, but that doesn't help us much."
"We can cry foul," said Dravus. "We tell them to show the body. If Kendrick is still alive out there, they won't be able to do that."
"It depends on where he is," said Nemm. "Seeing the body wouldn't be enough, we would have to inspect it, and I can already imagine the affront that they would pretend at."
"It's all in the past," said Lexari. "There will never be any proof, until the day that we meet the Blood Bard again. People have already seen what they saw, and the narrative has already been set in place. Responding now, without the most concrete of evidence, will do nothing to stop that narrative. Tens of thousands of people were primed to believe that Wenaru was a murderer, and they will know what they saw, especially because it makes for a better story."
"So that's it?" asked Darkheart. "You've done nothing in the time since you landed on our shores but introduce further instability?"
There was a loud banging on the door, and a messenger burst in without waiting for anyone to respond. "The city's on fire," he said quickly. "There's a riot in the streets."
Chapter 8
"We're going to have to execute Gael, of course," said the Flower Queen. She had a faint smile on her face, and looked around the room with sleepy eyes. She walked over to Wenaru and placed her hand against his cheek. "Oh, we'll have a marvelous trial first, of course, just the sort of thing to let people know that this is a place with law and order. We can use the cathedral for it, I think that the arched ceilings will look quite nice. I can dress up all in white, the virginal queen once more, and no one will be able to say that I was anything but a champion for my people." She nodded to Wenaru. "Oh Gael, you were such a dear companion, I owe my figure to you, you know that, but the good of the realm compels it."
"My queen is being indelicate," said Darkheart, "But she speaks the truth. We must be seen doing something."
"No," said Lexari, as though that might be the entirety of his argument. "The city burns, and someone needs to stop it. That can include us, or it can be solely whatever illustrati retain enough of their senses to bring that supposed law and order to the city. Either way, Wenaru is not going to be harmed by the likes of you."
"Show some respect," began the queen's husband. His mustache was twisted into a frown, but the Flower Queen was looking at her fingers and smiling.
"It wouldn't work," said Nemm. "String Gael up and parade his corpse around town, and the commoners will see it for the callous, pandering ploy that it is. Worse than that, they'll see it coming. There's no doubt been a campaign of agitation in advance of what happened after the duel, which means that the Council of Laborers is at least a step ahead of us. They'll have a plan in place and ready to respond to whatever we do, and that includes the obvious step — no offense Gael — of pinning it all on a patsy."
"The city burns," said Lexari. "The illustrati are needed to contain the fires and save those in need. If we can show at least that much grace in unfavorable circumstances, then we still deserve the power that's been granted to us. Call your illustrati to arms in defense of the palace; we'll take everyone who wants to join
us into the city itself."
The Flower Queen waved her hand. "It will all die out," she said. "The fire that burns bright burns fast."
"My queen is right," said Darkheart. "If there are problems, and you insist that we don't take the sensible course of action, better to make a strong defense against the rabble."
"There will be more than enough illustrati to protect you here, your majesty," said Lexari. He wasn't able to keep his voice entirely free of scorn. "Fire poses a real risk given these winds, and the queen can't rule over ashes. Nemm, Lightscour, and I will go deal with fires at least, if not with the people themselves." He turned slightly. "Gael will have to stay within Grayhull for now."
"I can help," said Wenaru. "If it's not fighting, only putting out the fires, and I'm sure there will be people who need healing —"
"Better not to for now," said Lexari. "It would draw too much unwelcome attention. If I could, I would get you to the Zenith and position it a mile out to sea, but it's too far to ship, and if things have gone south I suspect that they've already set off while waiting for people to settle down. It wouldn't be the first time the ship has been in danger." He turned back to Darkheart. "Gather the illustrati. Everyone with a scrap of power should be here guarding the palace or out in the city trying to calm the riots."
* * *
There were only five illustrati that joined them. The biggest surprise was Flame, the Flower Queen's friend and alchemist-in-residence. She had fire instead of hair, which had flames that licked a foot high; her domain was ideal for their purposes. She was unarmored, but had traded her dress in for a more practical skirt and leggings. Aside from her, there was Houndstooth with his yellow eyes (who was flanked by his two large dogs), Arbarber, Dovefall, and Devodrain. Nemm quietly expressed the notion that the latter two had no business in going out into the city, but if they were only after their own fame, Lexari didn't seem to have a problem with it.
They were split into groups of two or three; Lexari spread his wings of light and took to the air by himself, and Dravus was paired with Nemm. They took to the streets, moving towards the nearest pillar of smoke. As soon as they were free from earshot, they both began to speak at once.
"He betrayed —"
"You should have —"
"You go first," said Dravus.
"You should have killed him," said Nemm. "I was wrong about that. I didn't count on him martyring himself. If you'd have been the one to kill him, and kill him for real, they wouldn't have had so much ammunition to use against us."
"You never should have made a deal with him in the first place," said Dravus. "This was his plan all along. This was why he wanted to fight Lexari. I never stabbed him through the heart, he only faked the wound and was good enough to sell the performance. He'd probably been practicing that trick for a year. Without me showing mercy, his plan would have failed."
"A good planner has many plans," said Nemm. "This was a path that he wanted take, but there were others available to him. At least this way you're still alive."
The streets in this section of the city were devoid of people, but the sound of an angry mob could be heard a block over. Dravus wanted to talk more, but the time for talk seemed to be over. When Nemm leapt up to one of the roofs and crouched down, Dravus followed suit, and together they looked down on a hundred people standing in front of a burning shop. The smell of it filled Dravus's nose; there was a slightly metallic taste of ink.
"This is a font of their lies!" shouted a large man who stood with the burning shop behind him. "Day after day, penny dreadfuls to fill our heads with idle thoughts! We're cattle to them, draft animals to turn the mill, a fertile garden to plant their legend in! The Council wants a change!"
There were cheers from the crowd as the man continued on and the fire raged.
"I would say it's better to let this one burn itself out," said Nemm in a low voice. "Only the houses beside it have thatched roofs, which means that the fire is going to burn out of control if nothing is done." She shook her head. "And there are probably a dozen demonstrations like this going on all around Meriwall."
"We didn't come here to watch," said Dravus. He itched to jump down and confront the man, though he had no idea what he would say. He had seen enough of the Flower Queen to feel that the Council — whoever they truly were — had a point. She wasn't fit to rule, and her husband didn't seem at all concerned with reigning her in. He had few illusions about the sort of people who masterminded Kendrick's fake death being better rulers, but it didn't seem like they could be worse. His side had been chosen for him though, even if he hadn't stepped forward to duel Kendrick in front of half the city. Whether he liked it or not, these were his people now. "Was the play-acting part of the deal?" he found himself asking.
"No," said Nemm. She didn't seem surprised by the question, and her eyes didn't leave the man who was still shouting to the crowd. "I can't exactly say that he betrayed us, but he didn't actually need to. He was perfectly fine with holding up his end of the deal. I should have seen it coming all the same, but I was too worried about you dying."
Dravus frowned. He didn't believe that altruism ran deep in Nemm's veins.
"Let's break this up then, before the fire gets out of control," said Nemm. She leapt down to the street without waited for a response, with her daggers flashing in the air.
"Did you think of the printer when you took the torch to his shop?" she asked in a loud voice. Heads swiveled to look at her. "Did you picture him in your mind's eye? Tomorrow morning, when the fires have died down, he'll come walking into the charred husk of a place that he's worked his trade for years. He'll look down at the molten lead that was once his livelihood, and know that he was worse off. It never matters to the mob though, does it?"
"Stories," spat the large man. "The illustrati always come with their stories. How would you know who owns this place? You sailed in on your fancy ship three days ago." He flexed his muscles and cracked his neck, like he stood a shade of a chance against Nemm. "We've been under your thumb for too long. The lies turn to ash tonight."
Nemm stepped forward, and the large man barreled his way forward to greet her. The crowd hadn't quite backed away, but the man had made the mistake of making the fight between him and Nemm instead of Nemm and the mob; it was hard to kill an illustrati, but with enough people coming in from different directions at once, glass armor wasn't completely impenetrable. Dravus had been warned never to get so mired in battle that he couldn't escape the clutches of a dozen men trying to tear into him.
"Form a bucket brigade while I deal with this man," Nemm called to the crowd. "The printer would help to put out a fire at your houses, and if this isn't contained, it's going to spread through the city. It doesn't matter what happened with the Blood Bard tonight. Tomorrow there will be —"
The man's face had twisted into a snarl, and he'd began rushing towards Nemm. Her armor was already covering everything except for her face and hands, and she brought it around to cover those as well as he charged her. Dravus stood back, ready to smile as she demolished him, and ready to defend her in case there was any serious threat.
When the man was a foot away from Nemm, he burst into flames.
He was none the worse for it; he continued on with flames trailing behind him, like a torch being swung through the air. They covered his face and hands, and his shirt and pants had begun to burn off him almost at once. Nemm kicked backwards and leapt away from him, almost as though she'd known it was coming, and landed next to Dravus just as his brain was beginning to come around the the conclusion that this man was an illustrati of fire.
"What do we do?" asked Dravus, but Nemm's face was covered in a thick layer of glass, and she was already moving forward with a long, jagged sword. Dravus summoned a shadow blade for himself and moved to flank, but he had far less in the way of armor, and the man's flaming hand would burn at first touch.
The man lunged towards Nemm again. The flames that consumed him rose higher, but she moved towards him
instead of away and tumbled past. The man staggered, and Dravus realized all at once that Nemm was missing her sword, and the man had it lodged in his stomach, piercing all the way through to stick out from his back. Dravus moved forward and made a downward chop with his shadow blade, and caught the man in the shoulder, which was enough to make him collapse to the ground. When the flames that covered his skin began to flicker out, Nemm stepped forward and brought her foot down to crush the man's skull.
