The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  Her befuddlement magic was of small use at Oakdowns, but she had no problem wreaking havoc of a more direct nature. The rust-haired beauty had death in her eyes, and the spells she sent at Lottie had hit at least two of Oakdowns’s defenders. The soldiers writhed in agony, bleeding from Vane knew not where: from every part of their bodies, by the look of things. He couldn’t heal them without knowing what their injuries were.

  “You bitch!” screamed Agatha. The collateral damage she’d caused meant nothing to her. “You betraying whore!”

  Another of Agatha’s spells, a great black jet, went awry as Lottie deflected it. Vane vanished the thing before it struck a man in uniform. Lottie was on the defensive, and didn’t look as though she could hold out for long despite her glowing, reddened eyes. She’d notched her sword, and her lavender-hued shield, wrought of magic, was fading in places. She summoned the energy to renew it, but unnecessarily; Vane used Mudar to send Agatha’s next black jet back at its source. The woman’s own spell struck her in the chest.

  Agatha screamed as her skin turned black and flaked away. The curse spread outward to her arms, her legs, her rouged cheeks. As though the spell burned her alive, a fair number of her bones were visible before they clattered against the floor. Bile rising in his throat, Vane ran to heal Agatha’s first bloodied victims, or to try, but the men were already dead. Examining them, he still couldn’t say what the woman’s spells had done.

  The battle continued. As Vane changed his role to support and healing, Hune always in his sight, the library doors flew open and General Bruan marched in with Hayden Grissner, the dark-skinned sorcerer brothers Jane Trand had taught, and Trand herself, with the bony Rexy girl and a slew of uniforms at their backs.

  That meant much good. For one, every sorcerer to the king’s name had survived at least this long. A breathing Hayden would console Kora, would prove she was not the only member of the Crimson League left standing; that would be a lonely burden, Vane supposed, and not one he wished upon Kora when she was still so young. It also meant the soldiers and sorcerers left to guard the servants’ door from the exterior had decimated Linstrom’s men there, though by the number of gray uniforms behind the general, Oakdowns’s defenders had suffered heavy losses.

  Unfortunately, Linstrom’s troops didn’t balk when Ingleton’s reinforcements arrived. None of them savored the thought of prison, a trial, and a hanging. They preferred to die here, and they forced the sorcerers and the general’s troops to kill them to the last man. A number turned their weapons on themselves. With Thad too weak to defend himself, Vane and Hune stood guard by him through the last of the carnage.

  Only when the battle was over, definitively won, and the rest of the sorcerers were healing wounded soldiers did Vane catch a good glimpse of his mentor, the man who for years had housed, taught, and prepared him to take up his father’s title.

  “Zac!”

  Zacry Porteg glanced up from where he knelt by an inert guardsman. He raised a hand to the right side of his face, where a ropy scar—one to rival the general’s—cut through a gruesome bloodstain to mar his countenance. It ran from his temple down his neck, branching off to disfigure his nose.

  “Zacry, what…?”

  “Nasty spell split my face wide open. Saved my life, that Lottie did. Healed me before I lost enough blood to feel woozy. The shock of it took me out of the battle for a bit, but….”

  Vane nodded. He willed his stomach not to churn, but his horror must have shown in his expression, because Zacry asked, “How bad is it? Will it frighten my children?”

  “It might, for a while. They’ll realize soon enough you’re still the same old you. So will Joslyn. She’s already accustomed to being the better looking.” Vane was glad to see Zacry crack a smile. “It could be worse, you know. Much worse. You could have lost an eye, lost your life.”

  Vane paused. He swept the room with a glance; the place was crowded, overflowing with people stumbling among the dead and wounded. The prince was with Thad, helping him stand, probably meaning to move him to a bedroom.

  The Duke of Ingleton knelt by his mentor and lowered his voice. “Rexson’s dead, Zac.” Zacry’s face contorted, giving him an even more gruesome appearance. “I was occupied. Kora couldn’t save him. She said he died saving her, took an arrow…. I have to tell Hune before he hears from someone else. Come with me?”

  The elder sorcerer nodded his assent. Vane chided, “You can at least remove the blood,” and cast a vanishing spell. The stains disappeared from Zacry’s face, leaving just the scar, which looked far less sickening on its own.

  As the two men stood to follow Hune, Kora rushed up, still under the effects of Vane’s alteration spell. Hayden Grissner was with her—the former Leaguesman would have recognized her by that bandana—and he did a double take to look at Zacry. Kora just seemed grateful her brother was alive. The eyes that were and weren’t hers had tears in them, and she fell upon Zacry in a wild embrace, for what Vane imagined was not the first time since the battle’s end.

  “We’re off to talk to Hune,” Zacry told her. “You’ll be all right?”

  “Give the prince my blessings. And tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything for….”

  Zacry patted her back. He said, “No one blames you,” and passed her off to Hayden, the blond and soft-spoken “peasant duke.”

  * * *

  Zacry and Vane’s somber expressions frightened Hune. Their silence as they settled Thad, weak from blood loss, in a guestroom bed made the prince’s entire body tense up. When Thad no longer needed their attention, but lay with open, dulled eyes, watching, Hune could hold his tongue no longer.

  “What’s happened? Where’s the king, Vane? Why haven’t I seen him?”

  Vane swallowed before he spoke. “Your Highness, you should know….”

  “Where’s my father, Ingleton?”

  “He’s dead, Hune.”

  To suspect was one thing. To hear the words from one of the men Hune trusted most, hear the ache in Vane’s voice as he pronounced them, was something else entirely. Hune’s vision blurred as he stumbled to a chair against the wall. The sorcerers followed.

  While Vane explained the tragedy, Hune’s eyes began to sting. He listened, stunned, aching. Remembering.

  “It hasn’t been easy for you, living in your brothers’ shadows. You do know you mean no less to me than they? That I’m no less proud to call you my son?”

  Hune looked at the floor, hoping that might clear his burning eyes. Good Giver, they seared.

  Vane placed a brotherly hand on Hune’s shoulder. Zacry Porteg said, “I lost my father young, you know. Let it out, Hune. You can’t hold something like this in.”

  With that, Hune broke into sobs. Painful, racking ones, sobs to distend his chest. He had not wept like this since childhood, since the kidnapping, since the first night of many in that empty, uncomfortable basement, and just as he had turned to his brothers then, Vane held him now; neither man cared how stained from battle the other was. Hune didn’t realize right away that Vane was crying too. Next to them, Zacry took support from the wall.

  After an indeterminate length of time, Hune could leak nothing more from his eyes. Neither could Vane. The prince said, “We have to go to the Palace. See my brothers. As much as these tidings mean to me, to us all….”

  Vane nodded. “The implications for Valkin are greater. You’re right, Hune. That can’t wait, and frankly, I think we’d both prefer such unpleasantness behind us.”

  Zacry offered to put the general in charge of operations at Oakdowns until Vane returned. With that, no excuse for delay remained.

  The duke and prince broke the news to Neslan first, along with August, in Neslan’s chambers. August’s relief upon seeing her husband was short-lived; she burst into ardent tears, and Vane, as filthy as he was, refused to contaminate her with his grime. Shocked and stoic, Neslan held the duchess on Vane’s behalf with a numbed expression that threatened to turn to a vicious, thriving pain at
any instant.

  “Go wash,” he told his brother. Told Vane. “We can’t see Valkin with you looking like that, and the stench…. You reek of iron from the blood.”

  So Vane and Hune washed. Hune dressed afterward in his robe of state, and Vane borrowed a spare from Neslan, who too dressed formally after seeing August given a draught to help her rest. The men found Valkin in the king’s office, asleep at the table. He was resting his head on his arms and stirred when they entered.

  “What is this?” Valkin rubbed his eyes. “What time is it? How long was I…? Hune!” Valkin jumped when he saw his dark-haired brother; he pulled him into his chest. “Don’t you ever leave like that again, do you hear? You could have…. Vane!” The duke received similar treatment to the prince. “Is it over? The battle? You’re all right, both of you? Praise the Giver! Where…? What…?”

  Confusion overcame Valkin’s joy as he noted how his visitors were dressed, their pained expressions. He retook his seat at the table. Stiff from the position he’d held sleeping, he did not betray himself, did not stretch his back. Vane took a seat on his right. Neslan sat on his left, while Hune took the next chair over. The duke said:

  “We’ve come to tell you of victory at Oakdowns. Linstrom and his cohorts are no longer a threat to the crown, Your Majesty.”

  Valkin paled to be addressed that way. He raised a shaking hand to his mouth, and took a breath with his eyes shut before he looked to the Duke of Ingleton. “He stayed? He stayed to fight?”

  “At least one woman’s alive because he did so, but I’m afraid your father….”

  The crown prince’s voice was toneless. “He didn’t last the battle.”

  “He died to save another, Valkin. Your Majesty.”

  Valkin must acclimate himself to that title, and soon. Neslan patted his hand.

  Vane continued, “In the morning, you’ll want to send for Mason Greller. As your father’s Chief Adviser, he’ll have sheaves of information….” Valkin nodded. “General Bruan will have a thorough report about the battle. Casualties weren’t light. Your Majesty, I’m aware you’ve lost a father as well as a king, and I don’t mean to disturb your grief, but if I may make one suggestion, as spokesman of the Magic Council….” Valkin nodded a second time, afraid that his eyes looked deadened. “Francie Rafe will be resigning. She’ll need at least three people to replace her, with the amount of work she took on. Might I suggest Mick and Mart Wolding, and Rexy Plaint?”

  Some feeling of life, of vitality, returned to Valkin. He creased his brow and asked, “Aren’t those your school’s first sorcerer graduates?”

  “They understand what an honor that appointment would be, as well as the duty it entails. And they’ve proven themselves stout-hearted this day in your service.”

  “They fought at Oakdowns, then?”

  “Unselfishly and bravely.”

  “The appointments are theirs, if they’ll accept the posts.” Valkin sighed. Paused a bit, to gather strength. “There’s one other appointment I must make right now: my Chief Adviser. Vane, it has to be you. I’ll work closely with Mason Greller, but he can’t continue in the post he held beneath my father. With what just passed at your home, involving people with your talents…. You’re my only noble who’s a sorcerer. I have to make my faith in you as public as possible. It must be indisputable I won’t tolerate acts of hatred against the magicked, or everything your council’s worked for could be erased overnight. Expanding the Magic Council’s a start, but it’s not enough. Will you be my Chief Adviser?”

  Valkin had no doubt: the Duke of Ingleton knew how difficult his king found that command veiled as request. This was the first of many gut-wrenching decisions in Valkin’s future, but Vane, bless him, made it easy on the young monarch’s conscience. He stood to sink into a deep, fluid bow, and when he rose, his large eyes displayed no sentiment beyond a deep respect.

  “Your Majesty, I’m honored as well as humbled, for I know you ask this with no other concern than for your people’s welfare. That must come first for you as king, well before your desire to please or unburden those you care about. I couldn’t claim to deserve such a position as you’ve given me, but you have my word to aid you in any way I can.”

  Valkin had to blink back tears, but he kept them from spilling. “You’ll have to leave the Magic Council. It must have a noble, at least one. Who…?”

  Vane said, “Trust me to find an appropriate replacement. You’ll have other concerns: the funeral, your coronation….”

  Neslan told his brother, “Anything you need, you can count on Hune and me. We shouldn’t wake Melinda, but in the morning, the three of us can tell her what’s occurred.”

  Valkin said, “We must. We can’t wait for Mother; the girl’s bound to hear the king has died. He was her father, the same as ours…. She should hear it from family.”

  Hune said, “She will, my king.”

  “My king.” Neslan repeated the words. Took a moment to contemplate them before he said, “I can’t fathom what I’ve witnessed here tonight. What a mark of how far we’ve come. Valkin, how did father begin his rule twenty-five years ago?”

  “Banishing Kora Porteg.”

  “Exiling a sorceress to save her from a mob. How did yours just commence?”

  “I asked Vane to….”

  “You appointed a sorcerer, a known and noble-born sorcerer, your Chief Adviser. And every one of us knows it was the wisest choice you could have made. Think on that, Valkin. Think of the progress that indicates, the chasm that’s already been bridged over. Vane here is breathing evidence there’s hope for Herezoth.”

  Somehow, Valkin smiled. “It would seem so. Vane, should you be returning to Oakdowns?”

  “The general could use my help, unless you need me for something more.”

  “There’s a locked drawer,” said Valkin. “In my father’s desk. It’s always been locked. He told me not to bother about it. I have no idea where he kept the key, but I should know what’s inside. Could you…?”

  The princes watched as the king and his Chief Adviser approached the cedar desk on the other side of the room. Valkin pointed out the bottom drawer on the left-hand side, and Vane gave the handle a tug. Sure enough, it wouldn’t open.

  “Aperta,” said Vane, and tried once more. The drawer gave beneath the pull of his hand this time. Inside was a single scroll, tied with a ribbon, and a torn strip of parchment on which Rexson had written, “For my successor.” The duke handed them both to Valkin.

  “It seems your father knew you’d take an inventory of his desk. Perhaps this is dated, so you’ll know when he left it.”

  Vane stood with a hand on the young king’s shoulder while Neslan asked his brother, “Did you fall asleep when I left you here? Had you been sleeping all that time?”

  “I’d hardly slept all week. I’m not sure how I slept this afternoon, but….”

  Neslan said, “I’m glad you managed it. You needed rest, and you should try to rest some more, as soon as you read that scroll. Come tomorrow…. You’re ready for this, but it’ll take some adjusting, and you’ll need your faculties.”

  The panic, the reluctance, the grief the king felt: he refused to show them. His tone was not desperate; he was simply stating fact when he said, “I’ll need you. Every one of you.”

  Vane promised him, “We’re each at your disposal, never doubt that. As is your mother. The queen can’t be far from Podrar; I’ll go for her tomorrow.”

  Valkin thanked him and said yes, his mother should be at the Palace. She should never have left to begin with. Hune said, “Life will be different for her now. Different for all of us. We should give Valkin his privacy, I think, to read what Father left him. Whatever it is, it’s the concern of Herezoth’s king, not the rest of us.”

  Vane led Hune and Neslan in a deferential bow before their liege, and the three men filed from the office.

  When he found himself alone, Valkin dropped, trembling, into the chair behind his father’s desk. No,
behind his desk. His bloody….

  Good Giver, he’s gone. He’s really gone, I…. How could he do this to me? How could he take up arms? WHY?

  Because that was the man Rexson Phinnean had been. Because Vane and Vane’s home had been threatened on his account, and he would not let the duke face that danger without him. Because—Valkin shut his eyes against a wave of nausea—Rexson had believed that, if necessary, Valkin was ready to take the crown.

  How am I supposed to handle this? I…. I have to….

  He should eat something, he knew. He hadn’t eaten a thing since the lunch hour, but the thought of food made him want to gag. He would eat in the morning, whatever he could stomach when the time came. Right now, he had to read what his father had locked away for him.

  Valkin unfurled the scroll. It was dated on the sixteenth anniversary of his birth, the day Valkin had come of age and, upon his father’s death, would rule for himself instead of his mother as regent.

  To King Valkin I:

  If you’re reading these words, then your reign has begun in a manner far from ideal: unexpectedly, with you at a young age. As that’s the case, there is information I wish to pass along to you.

  First of all, never doubt I have done all within my power to prepare you for this moment. Your greatest asset has always been your giving, unselfish heart, and it will serve you well in the years ahead. Trust its guidance.

  Though the choice, of course, is yours and yours alone, I suggest you consider Vane Unsten for your Chief Adviser, and lean firmly upon him.

  That made Valkin smile. He had followed his father’s advice even before it reached him.

  All Mason Greller’s traits that have served me best—his tested loyalty to our kingdom and our family, his generosity as concerns his time and resources, his competent administration of the lands entrusted to his care—you will find in Vane. Please, son, don’t overlook the value of Vane’s upbringing in an inn. My years in the Crimson League taught me how the people think: what they value and what they want from life, what they can be expected to sacrifice if necessary and what things they will never part with. Much of what I learned surprised me. You lack that personal knowledge I and others paid so dearly for, but Vane possesses it in a supply even vaster than my own. Don’t disparage or dismiss that insight.