The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  “You won’t tell Father she knows we’re telekinetic?”

  “I keep my word, Valkin. I keep my word, but I should never have given it. Kora Porteg’s daughter! Magic or no magic, she doesn’t belong in Herezoth. No good will come from her being here. Why in the Giver’s name would you let her stay?”

  The Giver was Herezoth’s creator, its only deity, so many referred to him as “God” instead of (or in addition to) his proper title. Some chose not to believe in him, for his devotees claimed he inspired the human heart to saving action rather than worked blatant miracles, and as such, they possessed small proof of his existence.

  Valkin countered, “Why let her stay? Neslan, why would I send her back? You heard her: she wants to see the world. She felt trapped in Triflag. She’s finally escaped, and I say bless her for it. I won’t be the one she blames for them dragging her back to captivity.”

  Hune frowned, and straightened up as his beagle rolled over to rest on the rug. “She was hardly a captive back in Traigland. We’ve met her family, and they’re lovely people. Captivity? Where’s that coming from?”

  Neslan answered. “He’s projecting his own resentment onto her.”

  “What’s that?” said Hune.

  “He won’t talk about it with the likes of us, but he feels trapped in the Palace. He’s assuming Kansten feels the same when she’s in Traigland.” Neslan turned to Valkin. “I mean no disrespect. And I’m not judging you. But you do feel cornered, and it’s about time you admitted some truths to yourself.”

  The crown prince asked, “Admitted what, precisely?”

  “That you’re terrified at the thought of being king.”

  Valkin clenched his fist, a visceral reaction. He needed a second to register what his brother had dared suggest, and then exploded, “When did I say I would rather not be king?”

  “You haven’t, not in so many words. But it’s clear to me.”

  “Damn you! Do you think Father’s under that impression?”

  “Not yet. You’re an entirely different person in his presence than not. He’s going to learn how you feel at some point, though.”

  Valkin’s face grew hot. He felt tempted to throw a punch, and probably would have, if anyone but Neslan had spoken those words. “I’m not avoiding Father. He wouldn’t blame me, you know. It’s not as though he enjoys ruling.”

  Neslan agreed, “He wouldn’t storm at you, you’re right. He’d explain why he persists in ruling while he, in fact, does not enjoy it, until he makes you see why you must do the same. That’s what you’re avoiding: him convincing you to accept the crown. It’s delusional, and unhealthy, when the fact of the matter….”

  “The fact of the matter?” retorted Valkin. “The fact is I could abdicate, and what then? You want to be king?” Neslan’s face paled, and Valkin smirked. “Stop pretending my accepting the crown isn’t in your interest. Listen, I’ll speak with Father when I speak with him. The conversation will help me rule—because yes, I’m going to rule. I wouldn’t throw that kind of responsibility on your shoulders.”

  Neslan’s color did not return. He said, “I wasn’t meaning to…. I’m not being selfish here. I don’t imagine for one second you would abdicate. You’re too stubborn and you’ve too much pride. Valkin, you won’t be alone when your time comes to take over. We’ll be at your side, and that’s something Father never had. Who was with him, starting out?”

  Hune finally spoke, saying, “Hardly anyone. He spent years fighting for his life against Vane’s uncle, and then, when he turned things around…. He had courage to spare, he must have had. And a broken heart, having lost so many people: his whole family, Vane’s parents. He didn’t even have Mother at the beginning.”

  Neslan said, “He had the army’s support. And he ruled successfully from day one, though God knows how. Valkin, you’ll do just as well in your day.”

  Would he? Valkin couldn’t be sure which he dreaded more, the prospect of never coming into his own as the crown prince and future king—of never finding peace with the role he was literally born to play—or that of buckling beneath the pressure of his brothers, his father, of everyone around him who was pushing him step by step, day after day, to accept his birthright. He longed to forge a different life for himself. Even lacking a clear idea of what that life could be, he felt that his desire to leave the Palace was somehow the most genuine part of him.

  “Hang it all, I’ll be ruling after Father. After Father, Neslan. I’ll never match the standard he’s set with the people. He’s accomplished so damn much, and entirely by himself, that if anything I’ll be expected to exceed him. How could I possibly?”

  Neslan insisted, “You won’t have to. You’ll have your own crises to confront. You won’t relive Father’s. Such things don’t beg comparisons.”

  Hune, looking hesitant, told the crown prince, “It explains a lot to hear these things weigh on you. You’ve changed since you started shadowing Father, you know. These last two years…. You’ve grown more sullen. A bit more brooding. You’ve been trying for so long not to alert Father to your worries that the strain is eating your patience away. You’ll talk to him?”

  “I said I would, didn’t I?” barked Valkin. With that, he stormed from the library to his chambers before his brothers could say more. He was not in the mood to bother with them. He needed to decide how to broach the topic of his ruling with the king.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Partsvale

  August, Vane’s wife, was shorter than she would have preferred. Though she was almost thirty, her blonde hair curled as tightly as it had at eighteen, when Vane had convinced her to elope, and she twisted her index finger in her tresses while her husband spoke of Gratton’s race to Podrar.

  Vane told August and Kansten together of Gratton’s tidings, hoping the girl’s presence would strengthen his wife. He took them to Oakdowns’s parlor, where the only portrait Vane possessed of his parents hung above the unlit hearth. Kansten took an armchair, one she gripped so tightly the lamplight exposed the musculature of her arms. August sat next to the duke on a luxurious settee, and clung to him with the hand not tangled in her locks.

  The duchess kept her rounded nose tilted upward—a mark of her resolve not to crumble—and her lips pressed tight. Neither woman interrupted as Vane told them he would have to go to Partsvale in the morning to spy upon a group of two hundred magicians and a score of sorcerers determined to make trouble for the king. As soon as he finished, however, Kansten raised a trembling voice.

  “I can go back to Traigland, if you need me to.”

  Vane said, “You should be safe in Podrar. In Oakdowns especially, with all the spells I have around the place. Your apprenticeship starts next week, and to be honest, I’d like to know August has you here with her.”

  “Val….” choked the duchess. She was the only person who called Vane by some variation of his birth name, Valkin Heathdon. That had been his father’s name; his innkeeper “aunt” had raised him with his pseudonym, and he still preferred most people to use it. That included the nobility, now that he’d released his personal history to the newsletters. “Val, you can’t do this, you…. Twenty sorcerers?”

  “I won’t be challenging them. I swear I won’t challenge anyone. It’s information gathering; Rexson has to know what’s going on.”

  August pressed, “Can’t Zacry do it? Why can’t you go to Zacry? His magic is as strong as yours. He taught you everything you know, and frankly, he’d never let you….”

  “That’s exactly it. He’d never let me do this. He’d insist upon doing it himself, and if things went badly…. August, you and the children would be fine without me. You have the king and the Duke of Podrar’s family, this vast estate, all my family’s wealth. Were something to happen to Zacry, where could his wife turn? Where could her children?”

  Kansten spoke up then. Vane had never heard her voice so gentle, so womanly; he had always considered her a child, but not at that moment.

  “Perha
ps I shouldn’t talk,” she said. “I know I’ve no right to take part in this discussion, but August, Vane’s right. You’re tougher than Zacry’s wife. She would fall to pieces straightaway without him, and not only because she’d be close to destitute without his teacher’s salary. I love and respect Joslyn, with all my heart. She’s a wonderful mother to her children, and she helped me through some of the hardest times I’ve known. She helped me find self-respect again, when I realized I’d never cast a spell. Joslyn’s strong in her way, but you’d be better equipped to carry on if, if the Giver forbid….”

  If Evant Linstrom and his followers discovered Vane belonged to the king and saw him slaughtered. Vane paled at the thought, and squeezed August’s hand.

  “I should leave you two,” said Kansten. “I know where my room is. I’ll head there. August, if I can do anything to help you while Vane’s away, I want your word you’ll tell me.” August nodded, and Kansten turned to the man as good as her older brother. “Vane, I admire you so much…. A thousand blessings, do you hear?” Vane smiled at her, the first time he had smiled since ordering her from the king’s antechamber. She hugged him, and he told her:

  “I won’t see you in the morning. I’ll be off before dawn.” Kansten threw her arms around him again, then kissed August on the cheek before she exited the room.

  August had been born a commoner, but she’d adapted to the role of duchess through the years. Vane expected she’d have the grace to maintain composure in Kansten’s presence, but with her guest away, a watery film covered her eyes, and her bottom lip shook so dreadfully her husband kissed it to make it still. He removed her hand from her hair and held it between them, alongside her other.

  “This isn’t right,” August protested. “We’ve been through too much as it is, the both of us.”

  Vane couldn’t contradict her in good faith. He let her go on.

  “My sister endangered me kidnapping the king’s sons. You risked your life to rescue them, and saved me at the same time. You joined that Magic Council on the king’s behalf. For the good of his realm. That horrid duke ten years ago, he nearly slew the pair of us and the twins to boot. Now this. The king can’t ask you to do this, he….”

  “He didn’t, though I can’t say he wouldn’t have. I volunteered. I had to. We have to unravel this plot before Linstrom acts.”

  “I can’t lose you,” she pleaded. “I can’t. Val….”

  He kissed her again, to quiet her. He reminded her that Gratton had one spy already planted, which helped calm her. He warned, “You can’t let people know I’m away from Podrar. Tell the servants, the children, everyone, that I’m holed up in the Palace for council business.”

  “Val, why not the school? Why not say you’re in Carphead?”

  “It’s better if people think I haven’t left the capital.”

  “Safer, you mean. It’s safer, because Linstrom’s a sorcerer with nineteen more at his disposal. He could have someone transport to Podrar and ask questions, if he suspects you might be….”

  “Precisely. That’s why I’m at the Palace, understand?”

  August nodded, and said, “Wake the children. In the morning, before you go.”

  Vane had been sick only once in his life out of fear, when he’d returned to Oakdowns for wedding rings the day he and August eloped. He had found the night sky lit with the glow of protesters’ torches, protesters who did not want a sorcerer, and especially not Zalski Forzythe’s nephew, on the king’s newly announced Magic Council. He now fought the impulse to empty his stomach as he thought of his children sleeping in their beds: his twin daughters, Luce and Esper, inseparable and with minds as bright as the golden hair they had inherited from their mother; his sons, Harren and Dalen, strong-willed and fond of August’s bedtime stories. All four had Vane’s mother’s ice blue eyes, though Vane did not—he had his father’s eyes, a murky brown—and he felt his parents stare down from the mantle.

  The twins were ten. That was too young to lose their father, much too young, and the twins were the oldest. Harren was seven, just beginning to read to Vane at night instead of being read to, and Dalen, Dalen was three. He couldn’t even pronounce father correctly.

  Vane promised his wife, “I’m not leaving without telling the kids goodbye. I’ll be back, though. As soon as I possibly can, and not a minute later.”

  Vane looked to the portrait of his parents, as he had done countless times before. Parents he had never known. His raven-haired mother peered back, and Vane turned his gaze away. He could not bear those eyes, not if he wanted the acids churning in his stomach to remain there. Those eyes belonged to his steady and studious girls, to his curious, fearless boys. To the children he must see grow up.

  He stared into August’s face. That always calmed him, as though peace somehow emanated from her skin. His nausea didn’t vanish, but at least it stopped intensifying, and he admitted to her what he could never have admitted to another soul in Herezoth.

  “I think I might be sick before the night’s through.”

  August unlaced their fingers to bring their faces together and place her hands around Vane’s cheeks. “I know you can do this, Val. If anyone can, that’s person you. Not even Zacry would have a better chance. He’s too hotheaded. Too impulsive. I’ve always judged you more resourceful than he is. Your instincts are better, and they’ll get you through this. On top of that, I’ll be praying constantly: for your safety; for your success; for you and Rexson and Gratton to put a stop to this, before anyone’s hurt and everything we’ve worked a decade to achieve comes crashing down. We’ve worked so hard, Val. Herezoth’s made such strides toward peace…. I know you can do this,” August insisted. She kissed her husband. “I know you, and you can do this.” She kissed him again, and he threw his arms around her waist to transport them both to the manor’s master suite for greater privacy.

  * * *

  Vane reached the Palace the next morning before sunrise. He found a bleary-eyed Gratton stationed to let him and his travel bag inside through the servants’ door, as the Palace was impregnable by magic. (Vane’s usurper uncle had seen to that.) The duke and soldier found their king waiting in his antechamber, the same as the previous night. The queen, this time, was also present.

  Gracia Phinnean was a chestnut-haired beauty even still, with her age closer to fifty than forty. Vane had long considered her poise and elegance unmatched, even in the midst of crisis. Her Highness had always taken special interest in Vane, and striven to protect and counsel August. Now she gazed into Vane’s eyes with an expression of maternal love that restored the confidence leaving his family had shaken, and he said, “I’ll be back at midnight with my first report.”

  Gratton told Vane, “The king and I discussed your aims, and we agree you shouldn’t wait to contact the plot’s mastermind. Evant Linstrom lives in Partsvale. He’s a cobbler, works off the high street. You can speak with him in private there. If things take a turn for the worst, at least you’ve only him to deal with, not his fawning supporters.” The soldier paused. “Real bulky, he is. Black hair, no beard. His nose is crooked. Works with one of his accomplices, but you won’t have trouble picking Linstrom out.”

  Ingleton marked the description. “Ryne Howar,” he then pressed. “Our spy. I want to meet him before I see Linstrom. If I’m to tell Linstrom Howar pointed me his way—if we’re to pass ourselves off as acquaintances, or long-lost cousins—Howar must know what I look like.”

  The gray-haired soldier sighed. Vane only then realized how much the man regretted sending him to Partsvale. Partsvale was a small town, and Linstrom would have his eye on it. One misstep on Vane’s part….

  Vane had not seen Gratton in years before the previous night, but the man and his wife had been instrumental in helping Vane settle into life at court. In helping him and August survive a stint of violent opposition upon their marriage. Bendelof, bless the woman, had even died to protect August. It was for Bendelof’s sake, Vane knew, that Gratton wanted to protect him n
ow. He wanted to preserve what Bennie had given her life to safeguard. Well, that was out of the question. Gratton told the duke:

  “Howar owns a bakery. It’s down the street from Linstrom’s workshop. Buy some bread from him for breakfast, and clue him in. Subtly, understand? He’s a transplant to Partsvale, so the cousin thing should work.”

  Eat breakfast at Howar’s bakery…. Vane might as well. The queen placed a hand upon his shoulder. “How will you alter your appearance?” she asked. “Rexson told me you would, and I insist you do. Why not cast those spells now, for us?”

  The suggestion was logical. Vane’s allies could alert him to any flaws, any imperfections in his magic. Spells could sometimes be fickle….

  One of Vane’s more recent spellbook acquisitions held a distortion spell the king had deemed more powerful than any he remembered from his time with the resistance. That was the spell Vane thought to cast; he muttered beneath his breath, “Disfrasay,” and felt an uncomfortable warmth around the region of his face as his features changed. His head ached, and a sharp pain exploded behind his eyes, but only for a matter of seconds.

  The queen held Vane at arm’s length to study him. “That’ll do,” she announced. Gratton and the king agreed, and Gracia handed Vane a mirror she must have taken from her dressing chamber.

  Vane’s auburn hair had turned a vibrant shade of red, as well as lengthened. His chin had widened and sprouted a thin beard. His large eyes were less so, and his ears more pointed at the bottom. He handed Gracia back her glass, and asked the men, “We’re sure this is wise?” His voice sounded the same as before, so he spoke the incantation he had used on Kansten, to give himself a Podrar accent instead of the neutral tones he’d been raised to utter. His voice grew deeper. Sharper. “Are we sure this is wise?” he repeated. “What if Linstrom decides he won’t take chances and reverses these spells, checking for intrigue?”

  Gratton ordered, “Don’t let him,” and Vane rolled his eyes. Easy enough to say, that was.