Castle of Lies

by Kiersi Burkhart

  Thelia stops in front of a room that hasn’t been used since the long-dead King Ingoll fathered a dozen children. She throws the door open to reveal an empty suite. “This is all ours now.”

  Not as big as Corene’s, but it has a vaulted wood ceiling with two doors, one leading into an adjoining sitting room. “Look, Percy. This could be yours!”

  She’s trying to bribe me, hoping to find out what I know by giving me what I want more than anything: to escape those two tiny rooms in South Hall. It works.

  “I bet we could take out this sofa and get a bed in here for you,” Thelia says, plopping down on the scarlet cushions. She runs a hand across their curling wood arms, brushed with gold leaf.

  I could be one door away from Thelia, hearing her soft breaths through the wall between us. Her eyes touch mine, and for a moment I believe she’s thinking it, too.

  Guilt floods me. “Thelia.” I should’ve told her before. I should’ve told everyone about my suspicions, but I was angry. Nobody in the Kingdom has ever cared about me, so why should I try to save it? But I can’t keep this from Thelia. My only friend.

  “I think Nul se Lan’s going to betray Bayled. And if I don’t send word to him, that stupid trit will fall right into whatever trap the cratertooth lays out.”

  Bayled

  War is a glorious thing for everyone but those who have to fight in it.

  Every time we pass a junction on the Low Road, we find a new company of soldiers waiting, sent by their lords. Only half have armor, and even fewer are properly armed. Swords are in short supply so most men bring hatchets or hoes. Their faces are drawn and fearful, like prisoners awaiting the gallows. The lords of Melidihan have holed up in Four Halls, and I expect the rest to stay on their own distant estates. Only a few, like the battle-seasoned Baron Durnhal, will come to ride with us.

  Citizens gather at the crossroads, cheering as the King’s army passes. You’d think we’d already won the war the way they shake their pennants and hold out their infants. Most soldiers keep their faces straight ahead, silent as we march. But one particular company bellows and cheers as we pass.

  Nul se Lan scowls. “These men make trouble again. Do something.”

  A hulking, red-haired man riding an enormous chestnut stallion leads the company. When we left Melidihan, his men rigged up a keg astride a donkey. The emptier it gets, the louder their hollering and cheering, as if this is all some sporting event.

  I sigh. “Stone Company might act like stupid craggons, but they can win a fight. Especially their leader, Harged Halen. The King gave him a medal of accomplishment after the war.”

  Not that he’s in fighting shape now as he sways perilously on his horse. In the years since his company of common cityfolk helped conquer Frefois, gossip says Harged’s spent his time dominating Melidihan’s underground kroga ring—the one that meets in taverns late at night, and draws as many nobles as commoners for betting.

  Lan tightens his grip on his reins. “My father died. My city destroyed. This constant celebration insult me.” He spits over the side of his horse’s neck.

  I’m overcome by a soul-deep exhaustion. “What would you like me to do it about it?”

  “Send them home. Only trouble they’ll get us.” Nul sets his jaw. I size him up. He’s thinner than I am, but not less powerful. All lean muscle, tough and hard as his southern hills. But he’s not in command here.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” I say. “But we have less than three thousand men at present. I will not send our best fighters home just because you don’t like them.”

  Nul se Lan makes a hmmph sound. I turn around on my horse and holler, “Halen! To the front. Now.”

  Harged Halen rides up past Nul’s three stony-faced bodyguards and wedges himself between Nul and me at the head of the troop. “Good to finally get an audience with you, Vasha.” I don’t miss the note of irony.

  “The King sends his gratitude for your service.” And it’s General Vasha, I think, but that won’t earn any respect from Halen.

  Harged snorts. “Why isn’t he here himself?”

  “His Majesty’s health is poor,” I say stiffly.

  “Drinking too much?” I don’t reply, and Harged lets out a startling guffaw. “Can’t say I expected different. Old fool has never had any self-control as long as I’ve known him.”

  “Speaking of self-control.” I give him as meaningful a look as I can muster. “You need to keep your men—and yourself—in line. The keg and the donkey go at the next junction.”

  His eyes widen. “That keg was a hundred coin, boss!”

  “This war,” Lan interrupts him. “Not party.”

  Harged glances between us. “Hmm. The King’s ward and the King’s heir. So which one of you is leading us against the long ears?”

  “I am,” I say at the same time that Nul se Lan says, “Me.” I turn in my saddle to find him staring back at me, his severe blue eyes like icicles.

  “You two had better figure that out,” Harged says with a chuckle. “Someone will need to give orders in battle.”

  I stare down at Halrendar’s mane, clenching the reins tight. I’m the general; Lan is the heir. I thought the King made this clear. Why is he pretending otherwise?

  When we finally halt in the evening to make camp, the men are tired, unused to long-distance travel. They sit quietly around their fires, eating in solemn silence as I retreat into my tent.

  It’s not long before the sound of singing filters in through the flap. I reemerge to find Harged and the rest of Stone Company sitting around one of the fires, belting out an old traveling song I haven’t heard since I was a boy.

  Our knees ache and

  Our feet cry for air,

  Our heads bleed and

  To our hearts, it’s not fair;

  Out on the road

  There are no friends

  Only a weary comrade;

  Together, we meet our ends.

  I sit down in the dirt near the fire, and a soldier wordlessly brings me a bowl of soup while I listen. It’s thin, mostly water, and the vegetables squeeze when I chew them. If this is what they’re eating, it’s what I’ll eat.

  Someone taps me on the shoulder. It’s Sasel, a priestess-in-training the Temple sent along with us to send and receive smoke messages. “Evening.”

  I’m not a King, but neither is she a priestess. I guess King-in-training and priestess-in-training means neither of us gets a title. “Evening.”

  She crouches next to me, dressed in leather traveling clothes stitched with the Temple’s colors of white and black. “I received a message for you from a priestess at Four Halls.”

  I glance around, searching the heads for Lan. He’ll get his trews all twisted up if I don’t include him.

  She squeezes my shoulder, hard. I forget how strong the priestesses are, always hiding under shapeless shifts. “Only for you.” She holds out a piece of paper. “I wrote it down.”

  I hold up the paper to the firelight.

  Don’t trust the hillman.

  He has a plan.

  From P & T.

  Parsifal and Thelia. Why would they, of all people, send a warning like this? They don’t even like me.

  I remember meeting Parsifal at a party his dad threw at the Bellisare estate, out in the country. He and Thelia offered to show me his dad’s collection of bizarre antiques in the basement—the “Museum.” They asked me all sorts of questions about the cultures and places these strange objects came from. When I didn’t know the answers, they laughed and sneered.

  “Northerners,” Parsifal said in a mocking voice. “Think they’re so much better than us, but this one doesn’t know anything!”

  When Corene found us, she berated them for making a spectacle of me. He’s not some toy for you to play with, she’d said. He’s a dignified visitor. I fell in love with her then.

  It’s strange that they would try to help me now. Is this part of some other game of theirs? I fold up the piece of paper. “I
wish they’d said more.”

  “Nevertheless,” Sasel says, “you won’t want anyone else to see it.” She lifts her torch to the paper, and it goes up in flame.

  Chapter 7

  Sapphire

  When humankind first sprouted from Melidia’s seeds, we tried to help them as one would help a small child learning to walk. The dwarves built them sewer systems, designed aqueducts to bring them fresh water. We taught them principle, agriculture, Magic.

  It was a great mistake. The human children grew fierce and many. Everything in sight was theirs; they multiplied and expanded, more farms, more towns—more, more—swallowing everything.

  So The People left, frightened. We took Magic with us and retreated to the other side of the Great Mountains, to Viteos. We said, You remain there, and we remain here, to never cross. The dwarves, being dwarves, dug further underground. Instead of running, they hid. I do not know how far down they have gone to escape the steady encroachment of humankind, but we didn’t see a single sign of them as we hiked up the tallest peaks in the Forgotten Crags, past rockfalls and crevasses, to the place where Commander Valya knew to look. For a silver door, set in the mountain.

  We have been underground for almost a week now. I thought I could tolerate these old abandoned tunnels, but the darkness grows closer each day, squeezing me, choking me.

  I am grateful to rest when we stop to eat. My feet are tired and sore, and my hair is full of cobwebs.

  “How do they live like this?” I ask Ellze, for the fiftieth time.

  “I don’t know.” He runs one hand through his heavy, oily hair, and instantly regrets it. We haven’t run across even one water source—an underground pool, a tiny waterfall, nothing. Our bodies can retain water for a long time, but we may reach our limit soon.

  I don’t dare ask the Commander when we can expect to arrive, lest I acquire the reputation of complaining. But he is the only one with a map.

  Under my feet, the ground begins to tremble. I crouch down and place my hand flat on the stone floor. No, it is not the ground—the vibration is me, as if an electric current is running thick through me, using me as a conduit.

  “Ferah.” Our Magicker glances over, and I hold out my hand. “Do you feel this?”

  She wraps her hand around mine. The thrumming travels through me, into her. Her eyes grow wide. “Magic.”

  She lifts both hands in the air. Her fingers hook and pull, hook and pull, weaving invisible threads into her palms. Drawing them into herself. “Commander Valya, look.” She holds out one hand, and a small flicker of light appears in her palm. The Commander looks up from his own meal as the light expands, pulsing with blue veins. With life.

  A smile teases his mouth. “We’re getting close.”

  Ferah picks more skittering threads of Magic out of the air, gathering them up into a ball of beautiful white light. It swells until the entire cavern is awash in bright sunbeams that tickle my skin with warmth. It feels like we are standing outside in the most perfect, cloudless afternoon.

  We resume our march. Even when evening arrives, we do not rest with our destination so close and Ferah’s simulated sun beating our backs.

  The scent of sulfur and cinnamon creeps up my nose and I sneeze. It’s spicy and sweet and sour, all at once. Magic. Pressure grows inside my ears, the way it does when a big storm is rolling in. The force of it is unlike anything I have ever felt, even at our great well inside the High Seer’s cavern. I have knelt before that glittering green pool that is our pulsing heart, and it was nothing compared to this.

  My wisp comes to an abrupt halt. I creep forward to look at what it’s found. Its mauve glow reflects off something in the ceiling, something flat and smooth and perfectly round—a pattern that doesn’t occur naturally down here. A door, right overhead.

  “Sapphire?” the Commander asks. “Are you ready?” I must remember what I have come here to do and keep the plan at the front of my mind.

  I put on a cloak and raise the hood to hide the shape of my ears. The Commander pulls the door down, showering us with centuries of dust. Only darkness lies on the other side. My wisp chirps nervously.

  “Go on.” I gesture upward. “I need you to help me see.”

  It flies through the door, casting the tunnel above in dusky pink. This, clearly, is not the same craftsmanship or masonry as what lies behind us. The stones are smaller, more clumsily fitted. I have to jump to get my hands inside the door’s frame, where I grab on and lift myself the rest of the way into the tight stone tunnel. The wisp bobs above me, urging me on.

  I start up. Follow the smell of Magic.

  Bayled

  We’re supposed to reach the Crimson Woods tonight, but everyone’s dragging. Autumn rain started falling as soon as we woke up and hasn’t stopped. The soldiers are tired and our boots are soggy. Our progress will only grow slower as we add more reserves to the ranks.

  My insides feel coarse in a way they never felt before Nul se Lan arrived at Four Halls. Ever since, all I knew to be certain turned to liquid slipping out through the cracks in the floor.

  The King trusts Lan, or he would never have made him heir. But I can’t stop thinking about Thelia and Parsifal’s message. Can I even trust them? Maybe I’ve known them longer than this Southerner, but that only reminds me of all the games they’ve played with me before. Was it just skipping another stone in their endless pa-chi-chi game?

  At sundown, we pause to divvy up dinner rations. “Make it quick,” I holler. “We have to press on.”

  “Here we should camp for the night,” Nul se Lan says, dismounting. “You not lead before, so you not know. But after they stop, men not go farther.”

  It’s too early in the campaign for cutting our days short. I climb up onto a wagon to help my voice travel through the ranks of soldiers.

  “We’re in Crimson Woods territory,” I shout. Some of the men raise their heads from their bowls. “Baron Durnhal and his men will join us at the Crossing, making us five thousand strong. We can’t leave them waiting all night!”

  A few of them grunt in acknowledgment as the message travels back, but Harged and his men are too busy swigging beer. I jump down from the wagon and march back to them.

  “We won’t leave them waiting, will we?” I kick the keg, and Stone Company all jump to attention.

  “Sir!” Harged brings his arm up into a salute. The rest of the company follows. Nul se Lan stands by his horse, watching us with his arms crossed.

  “Would you leave your own to stand in the rain waiting, to stare into the horizon hoping?” I demand.

  “No!” one man shouts.

  Harged hollers, “We’d be total pricks!”

  “So are we going to stop here?”

  His face turns bright red. “NO!”

  The rest of the men hear his bellow and stand up at attention. “No!”

  Nul se Lan scowls at me as I get back on my horse. “Get your men organized,” I roar. “On to the Crossing.”

  By the time the moon is high over our heads, we’re all sagging in our saddles, half asleep. Maybe pushing ahead was a mistake. The truth is that I wanted the Baron’s counsel; he’s someone who remembers the war, someone with a steady mind. What would he make of Thelia and Parsifal’s warning?

  “There!” one of the scouts calls back. “The Crossing!”

  The three and a half towers of the Crossing appear on the moonlit horizon. The last tower was ravaged in the war, when the King’s force met the unified tribes of the Klissen on the Low Road—and fell to their swords. It was an easy victory for them.

  As we approach, it’s clear something is wrong. The towers aren’t lit. If the Baron were here, the braziers inside the high windows would be blazing. I think of the warning message and start searching the rooftops for shadowy figures. But we are painfully alone here.

  I urge Halrendar into a trot. Nul follows me toward the dark Crossing, but there’s no one in sight. Dust blows across the road that serpentines off into the Crimson Woods.<
br />
  “General.” It’s Harged, charging up on his massive stallion. “The Baron’s a deserter.”

  My chest squeezes. “We don’t know for sure,” I hedge. I can’t imagine Baron Durnhal abandoning the Kingdom in a time of such great need. And I don’t want to think about what that would mean for us.

  “Pretentious trit of a lord,” says Harged, spitting. “Can’t be bothered to show up for war. Doesn’t want to get his pretty armor dirty.”

  With a sigh, Nul se Lan says, “Maybe now, we camp?”

  I nod. Perhaps they were held up and will arrive during the night.

  Don’t trust the hillman. He has a plan.

  Well, it looks as if I can’t trust the Baron either.

  I wheel Halrendar around and hold my arm in the air. “We’ll set up camp here for the night and wait for Baron Durnhal’s men to arrive.” I call Sasel over. “Can you send a smoke message to the Crimson Woods? We’re here at the Crossing, and we’re waiting.”

  “Of course, General.” She glances at Nul se Lan before scurrying off with her smokesticks. My wrist twitches. I hope this is only a misunderstanding. Or else I’ll have to kill him.

  Parsifal

  The first evening in my new room, there’s a knock on my door. I get up to find the two most beautiful women in the world standing on the other side. Thelia winks as she leads Corene in, and they peer around my little space. They look bright and fresh and newly washed.

  “You brought all this from home?” Thelia asks, admiring one of my paintings.

  “Of course. What is life without art? If you’re going to suffer, there’s no reason to do it in ugliness.”

  Corene flops down on my sofa with a great sigh. I’ve decided to keep it instead of a bed. “I get it. The little comforts can give you a boost when you really need it.”

  Thelia sits down on the arm of the sofa. “It’ll take a lot of wine and foot massages for me to forget we’re all stuck in here, waiting to be killed.”