The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  Kora shrank against the wall, though she was alone. She had relived, in dreams, the mob’s attack more times than she could count; this was different. Those dreams began in the vestibule, but she was always with the Crimson League, surrounded by the citizens of Podrar who had rushed upon the Palace to slay Vane’s dictator-uncle. Finding him dead, they had turned on Kora. They would have beaten her to death. Before Rexson intervened, a woman with a broom had nearly broken Kora’s collarbone.

  Then Kora noticed the broom that lay at the foot of the stairs. She made herself approach it; the wooden handle was so polished that somehow, she saw her reflection. She had to pick up the cursed object and study herself before she realized what was different about her.

  No crow’s feet. No laugh lines along her mouth. Her cheeks were thinner, and her bandana gave her youthful face an urchin look. Kora was eighteen again, and wearing the same hunter’s breeches she’d donned the day the Crimson League had toppled Zalski Forzythe’s reign.

  “Kora.”

  The broom hit marble, with a clatter that echoed through the room. Kora whirled on her heel, because she recognized that voice. She hadn’t heard it in twenty-five years.

  A tall, straight-backed woman with impeccable posture and a gentle smile stood where Kora had found herself before walking to the stairs. The new arrival looked exactly as Kora remembered her; she had not aged from her thirty years. Her long, black hair hung loose, falling onto a plain, yet elegant, white gown. Her complexion was pale, and her eyes a piercing shade of ice blue.

  “Laskenay.” Kora ran to the woman who had taught her magic. To Vane’s mother. “Laskenay, what is this?”

  Kora embraced her mentor. She had watched Laskenay die, had watched Zalski kick her corpse in the Palace courtyard, but here, the raven-haired duchess was as alive as anyone. She squeezed Kora’s shoulder as she pried the girl off her.

  “We haven’t much time,” Laskenay warned.

  “What are you talking about? Don’t tell me this is a dream. It’s too real. Like when Petroc used magic to pull my spirit to the Hall of Sorcery, to make me come for his chain.” Kora paused. She would never feel comfortable mentioning that necklace. “Why are we at the Palace?”

  “You could answer that better than I. We’re on an unstable plane, one between the physical world and the afterlife. It takes the form you bestow upon it.”

  “Me?”

  “A form significant to you, a place engraved on your soul.”

  “But why mine? Why not yours?”

  “Your spirit called me here. It’s been calling me for years, ever since I died. That’s not unusual in itself; many of us who have moved on feel pulled by someone or other we knew in life. My son’s longed for me as well, especially when he was young.”

  “Have you ever met Vane this way?”

  “The Giver forbids conferences such as these, between the dead and the living, but he bid me answer you this night. He bid me give you explanations, now that you can hear them without endangering the future.”

  “Does that mean I…?”

  “You’ve fulfilled your destiny as the Marked One, fulfilled it to completion. Explanations can no longer interfere. As the Giver redirected your entire life with that gem above your nose, he wanted to grant you some understanding.”

  Kora gulped. “You have answers?”

  “Death brings a clarity, a fullness of vision that in life we could never take in. Your ruby, for instance….”

  Kora’s mind took her back. She carried few moments from life in Herezoth with her as clearly as the time she had first seen a ruby. Dust from a country road freshly trodden by cart wheels and horse hooves had burned her eyes; hatred for a mounted man, a captain in Zalski’s army who had struck her best friend, had tensed her muscles. She’d kept calm because that friend, a young man named Sedder, couldn’t.

  They had found Kora’s ruby together. She had touched it first. At night, she still wondered whether that simple act had sealed her fate. She was born a sorceress, but could the gem have marked Sedder, had he reached for it instead of her?

  That blasted gem. That horrid stone had set Zalski after her, and she had only known it as a ruby because she’d heard that rubies were red. Kora’s childhood had been a simple one. Her father was a carpenter; her mother had no fine necklaces or bracelets.

  Yes, Kora remembered her first encounter with precious stones. “That crate of jewels passed me on the road,” she said. “Sedder and I, we thought it was a coal transport, but my ruby rose from a crack in the box’s cover as the cart rode by. The motion was too stiff, too slow to be from a spell, and there was no one around who knew magic. When I touched the gem and it split, and half of it flew to my face…. I could only think it was the Giver’s work. He almost never interferes with us like that, but what else could it have been? I….”

  “I wondered in life about your ruby, the same as you did. In every version of the Marked One’s legend I came across, the Giver had a prominent role. Only when I died could I see how you….”

  “How I what?”

  “The Giver acted as he did to set you on your path. Had you been born with a mole on your cheek, that would have satisfied the legend, you know. Your face would have been marked, but could you have accepted your role? By your ruby, the Giver forced acceptance on you. He also…. Since so much was to fall to you, he wanted to give you proof of his existence, so you could take strength and comfort. He wanted to leave you no doubt of divine support in your undertakings.”

  Kora strummed her fingers on the back of her hand. “I did pray,” she admitted. “I prayed a lot. I can’t say I had Bendelof’s devotion, but….”

  “Few could match Bennie’s devotion. Faith was part of your ruby’s purpose, not the whole.”

  “Let’s sit,” said Kora. “I think I should sit.”

  She led Laskenay to the staircase wing not blocked by the broom, and they took seats on the silk-carpeted steps. Laskenay glanced upward.

  “You remember this place well.”

  “I wish I didn’t, believe me.”

  “Your memories of the vestibule are less pleasant than mine. I knew balls here. Banquets….”

  “Laskenay, you said we wouldn’t have much time. Not to cut you off, but….”

  “You’re right. We were talking about your gem, no? How it came to you. And I was saying….”

  “The Giver acting that day was about more than bringing me to faith.”

  “I met you a mere hour after you came across that ruby. I never saw anyone look so desperate, Kora. So unsure of herself. As much as you came to accept a divine hand in those events, and to trust they had a purpose beyond your understanding, you couldn’t understand them. And that saved everything.”

  “It saved our cause?”

  “Anything more mundane than what you experienced, and you wouldn’t have felt as alarmed or vulnerable. You wouldn’t have thrown yourself under my wing, or turned to Rexson for the comfort of his friendship.”

  Kora remembered her first conversation with Rexson, or rather, Lanokas: in the middle of the night it had been, her first night with the League. Fears of being the Marked One had terrorized her sleep, and Lanokas had held guard duty, so he was awake. She’d felt an instant connection with the prince. Weeks later, when Zalski Forzythe killed Sedder in an ambush, her turning to Lanokas in grief had only deepened their mutual fondness.

  Laskenay said, “I always knew how you two cared for one another. In the end, you felt an enormous debt to me for my guidance, and Rexson to you, for your banishment at his hand.”

  “He never did forgive himself for that. I don’t know why. He acted to save me.”

  “Nonetheless, he lived with guilt. That guilt from hurting someone he loved so deeply, it spurred him, Kora. It was his motivation to work for Herezoth’s good. When he considered things hopeless, he’d remind himself of what he’d done to you. How he’d spurned you to secure the throne, in the hope of bringing peace to his realm. The least
he owed you was to do all within his power to ensure that peace might last.”

  “Really?” Kora pulled her knees in. “What about my debt to you, then?”

  “Why did your family take in my son? Teach him mercy and fortitude along with magic? How much good has he accomplished as a result, since his return to Herezoth?”

  “More good than I can name,” said Kora. She looked Vane’s mother in the eye. “I’m so proud of him, he…. Laskenay, you know you have grandchildren?”

  Laskenay’s gaze had always held an appearance of strength, of cold composure, but that faded as she said, “I know. Four of them.”

  “I could bring your son a message.”

  “I’d entrust you with words for him, but it…. It’s not the safest option. He might deem you had dreamed them. Doubt your sanity.” Laskenay paused. “You shouldn’t tell anyone what we’ve spoken here. This brief meeting is for you, and you alone. To answer your questions.”

  Kora whispered, “Why me? Of all the people in the kingdom, why me?”

  “We all enter the world to meet some goal. For some unique purpose no one else can fulfill.”

  “It could never have been Sedder, then? I didn’t doom him grabbing that stone before he could?”

  Kora’s ruby had changed Sedder’s life as much as hers. He’d only survived a month with Laskenay and her group of rebels after he and Kora joined them.

  “Of course you didn’t doom your first love. You were born to be the Marked One, and you succeeded. I’m honored to think I taught you as little as I did. I’d never claim a part in the struggles and the triumphs that were yours, wholly yours, but….”

  “Laskenay, there’s a reason I felt so indebted to you. Why I still do. I’ll owe you even more if you could tell Rexson….”

  “I shouldn’t bring messages back. No more than you should. I can tell you, though, that no one you lost blames you. Especially not Sedder.”

  “Not even Rexson’s brother? Not for pushing him away from the League after I eavesdropped on the two of you?”

  “I’ve told you, death broadens one’s vision. Rexson’s brother needed a broader vision as much as anyone I knew in life. Rest assured, we’ve all found peace.”

  Kora nodded, and Laskenay said, “I must go now. May that same peace be yours.”

  She clasped Kora’s hand, and then, as though she transported without an incantation, she vanished. Kora’s strength left her when she found herself alone again, so she kept to her seat on the stairs. The motion of pulling off her bandana was more mechanical than not. She raised a hand to her forehead, and the gem—the stone that had stuck to her skin for a quarter century—fell off at her touch. It landed in her lap. Astonished, Kora laid it across her palm.

  Then she woke in her bed at Oakdowns. That shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. Had she been dreaming? That could not have been a dream….

  Kora’s right hand lay on her pillow, next to her face. It was clenched in a fist. Though the room was dark, she unfurled her fingers and felt something small and hard there. Something round.

  She grazed her forehead with her other hand, and gasped. Her skin was smooth, perfectly smooth. Her ruby was gone.

  Kora took Laskenay’s warnings about revealing their talk to heart. She had kept few things from Parker throughout the years, but her mentor’s explanations would be her secret. She explained events as best she could to her husband.

  “I’m finished with the Marked One, and all that business. Whatever I was supposed to do, I must have done it. The ruby came off. That has to mean Herezoth’s safe.”

  Parker looked her in the eye. “Not completely,” he said. “You just told me Rexson Phinnean was killed by a bunch of magicked maniacs. No matter what his son does, there’ll be repercussions from that. Kora, I think it’s about time you sent Zacry to Podrar with your book.”

  Kora rubbed her hands together. “My book?”

  “Yeah, your book. The one about magic’s history and the reason things went to hell the way they did. The one you spent a decade researching.”

  “I know what book you mean. Parker….”

  “I reckon it’s time,” he repeated. “How often did you tell me you wrote it to help people understand magic? If they understood the past, then the present could make sense and maybe they’d be rational about sorcery. That’s what you claimed, but you wrote your book and you’ve done nothing with it for years. Waiting for the right moment, you said. You’d have Zac do something with it later.”

  “I know I said….”

  “Can you think of a situation where Herezoth might need that book more than now? With your name on it, there won’t be a person back home who can read that won’t find a way to glimpse some pages.”

  “Parker, I know how people talk about me. It’s not fun to think about, and I really…. I don’t want to set them talking even more. Kansten’s there. You know she’d hear….”

  Parker smiled. “I wouldn’t want to be the man to insult you in front of your daughter. A rabid dog would be calmer than that girl.”

  That made Kora grin, though she tried not to. She was proud of her Kancat, as proud as she was of her sons. No need to mention Hune; Kansten would never forgive her for that. Kora would wait, and when Kansten came to her for advice, or in tears, she’d tell Parker about the prince.

  Kora gave her husband an affectionate squeeze and said, “The only time I’ve ever been a coward is in regard to that book. Well, I can’t be anymore. After what happened to the king….”

  “So you’ll send it with Zac?”

  Kora kissed him, and replaced her bandana. She grimaced as she spoke, but she agreed, “I’ll send it with Zac.”

  * * *

  The queen had passed the first night of her journey to Partsvale in a pavilion her guard erected out of view of Herezoth’s major trade road. That road ran north from Podrar all the way to Fontferry and the base of the Pearl Mountains. There, they would cross the Podra River by a bridge and continue westward. Provisions were few, for the queen’s main concern had been leaving as soon as possible, before Rexson or one of her sons discovered her intentions. Gracia’s route passed many a pulp mill and many villages in which to find supplies, and if the queen’s dinner of dried fruit, salted pork, and hard bread from the kitchens had been far from what she had grown accustomed to in her comfortable life, well, the sacrifice seemed just as well. Her pilgrimage was one of penitence.

  Unsurprisingly, she felt unrested by the time the sun rose. She’d spent the dark hours reflecting on a note she had found in her antechamber her last evening at the Palace. Rexson had written her some hours after their argument, and had rushed himself to do so. A part of her felt insulted, though a larger part recognized how touched she should be that he had made time to write her at all:

  I wished to speak with you again, but have found myself occupied all day. If you could have assisted me, I’d have called you. We’re uncovering more and more about Linstrom’s plot, and I believe we can stop him.

  I’ve no doubt you’ve passed your day seeing to Valkin, and I’m grateful. I have always been grateful for the support and example you furnish him. You’ve been as selfless where the children are concerned as I strive to be.

  I shan’t see you tonight—there’s urgent strategy to develop—but when I can, you’ve my word I’ll find you to apologize for that vase.

  Gracia had the short note memorized before she left Podrar, but still she’d carried it near her chest. Even though it rubbed her skin raw as she rode, she had not removed it once since tucking it away.

  When dawn broke, Gracia’s escort roused themselves. After a rushed breakfast no different from the previous night’s meal, she and her men broke camp and continued northward, with only two soldiers riding before the queen. She had pressed them to travel as far as possible the day before, for fear Rexson had sent men to overtake her. Though no one had come upon them in the night, the queen continued a pace so rapid as to nearly be reckless. After an hour, p
erhaps, of riding, two small, unmounted figures appeared before her on the road. Gracia and her protectors slowed their horses to a trot, and soon saw the pair to be a man and woman. Gracia recognized breeches as well as a billowing dress.

  Drawing near, the queen’s heart dropped. She knew that couple well: Vane and August, in dark clothes. Her husband had sent the duke to bring her home. Well—pride straightened her spine, though she was aware how ragged and windblown she must look—she was the queen. Vane wouldn’t dare transport her back against her will.

  Gracia’s vanguard knew Ingleton, and neither threatened him nor prevented the queen riding off the road for a private word. August joined the pair, and as soon as Gracia dismounted, her riding gear dirt-stained from the morning journey, Vane began to speak.

  The edge of a pine forest stood to their left, blocking the sight and sound of the Podra as it ran toward the capital. To the right, wheat fields marked the presence of a village not far up the road and, indeed, just visible to the north. For high summer the day was cool, almost comfortably so, but Gracia sweated at Vane’s tidings while August held her in a one-armed embrace: Linstrom had attacked Oakdowns, though he and his men had all been killed. They had murdered the king.

  August, tears in her eyes, pulled Gracia closer to show her support. Her filial devotion. Sweet August: sweet, innocent girl, who’d protected Gracia’s kidnapped sons far better than Gracia had her kingdom. The thought brought the queen close to fainting. Her vision blurred, and she heard Vane’s voice as though he spoke from a greater distance than that which stood between them.

  “I know what your intentions were, traveling to Partsvale, and I can’t fault you for them. But right now your children need you.”

  Gracia held a hand to her chest, pressed Rexson’s note against her heart as Vane went on.

  “Melinda tore out the room when her brothers told her about their father. She locked herself in her chambers and wouldn’t let a soul in but her nurse. Neslan’s in shock. The enormity of what’s happened hasn’t hit him in full force yet, but it will. Hune’s despondent, and Valkin…. Valkin’s overwhelmed at the thought not only of losing Rexson but having to succeed him. He needs your counsel. I promise, none of them blames you, and neither would your husband. You didn’t sanction the attack that took his life.”