A Crown for Assassins

by Morgan Rice

  Cora and the others kept running.

  “Into the maze,” Sebastian shouted to them.

  Cora nodded and followed into the garden maze, hoping that they might be able to lose the Master of Crows within its depths. At the very least, they could ambush him in there and try to even up the fight. They headed into the center of the maze. At least there they would have a chance.

  Then Cora saw the crows gathering, and she knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

  There were hundreds of them; thousands. There were so many that they seemed to form a jet-black blanket that covered the maze, landing on its bushes until every surface of the garden maze was thick with them. Beaks tore at the bushes, ripping away twigs, snapping at leaves. Claws ripped at branches, carrying them away easily.

  “They’re destroying the maze,” Cora said.

  Sebastian nodded, looking around as if seeking some other safe place for them. Cora knew as well as anyone that there wasn’t one, though. There was nowhere to run as the birds tore at the hedges, ripping them into fragments in a display of power that left her feeling insignificant next to the sheer scale of the things the Master of Crows could do. It was like a hurricane tearing at a village, or a plague of insects destroying a farmer’s crops.

  In a minute or less, there was nothing left. Rather than the safety of the maze, their small group now stood in the middle of a ring of crows and soldiers, surrounded as surely as if they’d walked into the middle of an enemy encampment.

  The Master of Crows started to stalk forward, and Cora’s grip tightened on her sword. If she could find a moment to cut him down, all of this would be over, even if it cost her life.

  “You can’t,” Aidan whispered to her.

  “I have to.”

  “Then it’s obvious what I have to do. I love you.”

  He pushed her back, lunging forward at the New Army’s general. Aidan’s sword flashed with all the skill he’d shown on the practice grounds, and for a moment, Cora thought that he might be fast enough, good enough, to end this.

  Then the Master of Crows sidestepped, ramming his own sword through Aidan’s chest and holding him there, pinned like a scarecrow.

  “No!” Cora screamed, feeling her heart break even as steel slid through Aidan’s. “No!”

  Grief burst over her. Aidan had saved her life. He’d died saving her life, trying to do what he’d known she couldn’t. He’d been the finest person Cora had known, and he was gone from the world in an instant.

  A part of her wanted to fling herself at the Master of Crows, if only to join Aidan in death, but one glance from those deep black eyes stopped her. If she lunged at him, she would die. There was no chance of killing him, and right then, Cora wouldn’t settle for anything less. She had to live, because it was the only way to make sure that he died.

  The Master of Crows smiled as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Probably he did. He let Aidan fall in a ragged heap and then held out a hand.

  “I’ve had enough of this foolishness,” he said. “You will hand over the child.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  The Master of Crows advanced on the small group of his enemies, repeating his demand.

  “There are only so many times that I will ask for the child before I simply take it,” he said. “That I have not done so should tell you that I wish it no harm.”

  “Her,” the would-be king, Sebastian, said. “Violet is not an ‘it.’”

  “If you do not hand the child over, none of you will be anything,” he said. “I will order my men forward, and they will slaughter each and every one of you. Then I will have the child anyway.”

  “Then why don’t you?” one of the newcomers demanded. Not the one who was still grieving over the man he’d cut down, the other one. The one who’d managed to confuse him with mirror images to get them even this far. “If you could really do all that, I think you’d do it.”

  “The child is more valuable to me alive,” the Master of Crows said again. It was even true, in its way. A death like this, in the middle of battle, was not as efficient for taking power as one with the proper symbols and rituals around it. There was a reason those with power ended up in his crow cages.

  “And what do we get if we hand her over?” the young woman holding the child demanded. She took a step forward. Sebastian grabbed for her, but she pulled away from him, and the Master of Crows pointed a pistol at him to keep him still.

  “Now, now, I thought your lovely wife was all in favor of letting the common folk speak. Speak, woman.”

  “If I give her to you, what then?”

  The Master of Crows regarded her evenly. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re demanding her from us. I… I don’t want to die,” she said. She looked back to the others. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. I have a babe of my own waiting for me at home, and as much as I care about little Princess Violet, she’s not mine, is she? If we’re all going to die anyway, then why not do this?”

  “Why not indeed?” the Master of Crows said. He considered his options for a moment, but only for a moment, because the correct course was so obvious. “Very well. Bring me the child and my men will escort you back to your home. You will be allowed to collect your child and any other sundry family, and then to leave the city safely. You will not be harmed.”

  He raised a finger as Sebastian started forward again. “Now, now, your majesty. Since you are out of the line of fire of the child, rest assured that my men will shoot you if you or any of the others move again.”

  He signaled, and his men leveled their weapons at the three left on the lawn. He would kill them afterward, obviously, but at least this way he had the option of doing it in the ways that were to his greatest advantage.

  “Very well,” he said to the nursemaid, beckoning her onward, “come forward.”

  She started forward on obviously shaky legs, moving away from the others, bearing the child so gently and so softly that she could have been its mother…

  The Master of Crows lifted his pistol and shot the young woman through the throat before she could make it halfway to him. The crack reverberated around the garden, the scent of powder hanging in the air for a moment while the young woman blinked at him in shock. She stood there in stunned silence, a knife clattering from nerveless fingers. The Master of Crows closed the distance to her then, using his speed to reach her in less time than it took for her legs to buckle, plucking the child from her arms as she died.

  “A brave move,” he said, looking down at her with contempt, “but a foolish one. Of course, I would have killed you anyway, but that isn’t the point.”

  He held the baby against his jacket. She looked up at him, screwed up her tiny features, and cried. Compared to the cawing of crows, it was such a jarring sound. How did parents stand such mewling?

  Still, he tried for a parody of a smile; the kind of thing that might have come from a kindly uncle or a grandfather. It amused him mostly because he was anything but kindly, and he could already picture the way his crows would peck at this tiny thing’s flesh.

  “There, there,” he said. “Be quiet, tiny child, or I will snuff you out like a candle.”

  To his surprise, it worked. The little girl lay against him, looking up at him with inquiring eyes. She even gurgled a laugh, which went to show how foolish children were. Strange to think that he could feel such power coming from something so obviously weak and foolish.

  The Master of Crows looked over to the three still waiting in the remains of the maze. He gestured to his men.

  “Oh, I don’t need them anymore,” he said. “Take the woman with power and put her in a gibbet. Impale his majesty so his subjects can see. Do what you want with the other one.”

  His men started forward, and the Master of Crows looked back down to the child in his arms. She reached out with one tiny hand to touch his face…

  He screamed as white light burst around him, burning hotter than any fire as that tiny palm seared into his flesh. T
he sheer power of it thrummed through him, threatening to tear him apart and sending him to his knees, the child rolling softly from his grasp onto the lawn. The Master of Crows wept with the agony of it, and the pain seemed as though it might consume everything he was in that instant.

  He’d been hurt before. Kate Danse had managed to wound him on the beach outside Carrick, while her brother had stuck a sword in him when they’d dueled. This was more painful than either, and all from a touch.

  The Master of Crows couldn’t see through his own eyes then, because the white light left afterimages that he couldn’t blink away. He reached out for the eyes of his creatures, but that wasn’t any better. They wheeled and milled, shrieking in their own agony, several of them falling dead where they were, the rest flying at random, getting in the way of any careful judgment of what was happening. He had brief glimpses of his men looking stunned, uncertain of what to do as they tried to locate something to shoot at.

  Finally, he managed to grab control of one of them high enough above the scene to be able to look down on it without being affected. The Master of Crows drifted with it for a moment, its soaring flight soothing, the sensation of the wind like a salve against his skull.

  He forced it to look down, trying to make sense of what was happening. He could see his crows buffeting and wheeling in a hurricane of feathers and beaks, making it impossible for any of his men to fire. He could see his own prostrate form on the grass, so still that it might have been dead. He could see the child who had done this crawling away, and the woman without any power snatching it up.

  His prisoners should have died in that moment, but the milling crowd of birds meant that even those soldiers who did fire muskets hit nothing but feathers. The three were away and running while his men were still trying to make some sense of the situation.

  “No,” he told himself. “They will not escape.”

  He threw himself back at his body, ignoring the pain, forcing himself to stand even though it seemed to take all his strength to do it. The child had not robbed him of all that he was, had not taken away the power that was his to command. He blinked away the last of the afterimages, stretching out his powers and forcing the crows back to his control. He threw his arms wide and they scattered to the roof of the palace, leaving the way clear for him to see the last glimpses of the retreating figures before they disappeared through one of the gates that led away from the palace grounds.

  “Enough of this,” he said, his voice carrying out to his men. “I offer a year’s pay to the man who brings me that child, and death to anyone who fails! Grab them. Kill the others, recover the child!”

  His men set off at a run, each fighting to be the first to reach the fleeing figures. The Master of Crows gathered himself, feeling some of his strength seep back in as the killing around the city went on and his creatures feasted.

  Slowly, deliberately, he set off in pursuit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Endi sat in Ishjemme’s great hall, waiting for his brother. Oli had said that they would meet as soon as the sun was up, and he wasn’t one to be late. Endi drummed his fingers on the arm of the ducal seat as he waited, thinking about all the matters that still needed to be dealt with today. He found himself hoping that this wouldn’t take too long.

  The great hall was empty except for Endi. He’d promised his brother that much. Oli had said that they should talk alone, and Endi was willing to go along with it. Perhaps this could be resolved by talking to him. Endi wanted to believe that. Oli was family, after all.

  Finally, the door at the far end of the great hall opened, letting Oli in. In spite of his message, his brother wasn’t alone. A pair of guardsmen, old veterans who’d been in his father’s service, stood to either side of him. Half a dozen young men from Ishjemme’s clans stood with them, probably the most senior ones available, when so many others were away in Ashton. Several wore the full regalia of their families, with clan colors, torcs, and symbols that made them look, to Endi, like children playing dress up with their fathers’ things.

  “So much for meeting me alone,” Endi said, as Oli came forward. His brother actually wore a sword today. “Do you even know how to use that thing, brother?”

  “I thought it would show you that I’m serious,” Oli said. He gestured to the young men around him. “I thought these would show you that the old families here support what I have to say, and so do plenty of the guards. There are more outside who let us in.”

  “And what do you have to say, Oli?” Endi asked, standing. “Are you going to give me an explanation for why Rika isn’t in her rooms?”

  Oli stared at him with a surprising amount of backbone, given how quickly he usually caved in.

  “I… sent someone to get Rika out of there,” he said. “She’s safe with the people who are willing to stand against you. I don’t want a war with you, though, Endi. You’re my brother.”

  “And your duke, Oli,” Endi pointed out. “Let’s not forget that part.”

  Oli shook his head. Endi wished he could say it was a surprise.

  “You’re not the duke,” Oli said. “You took our father’s seat by force, and you’re keeping it by murdering people. That isn’t the way that a duke of Ishjemme behaves. Do you think Father would have done any of what you’ve done?”

  “Our father didn’t have to,” Endi snapped back, “because he had me to do it for him. He got to sit there, all high and mighty in his honor, because whenever some threat came up in the shadows, I was there to deal with it. I was the one handling the spies. I was the one—”

  “Paying the assassins,” Oli said. “Say it. Or are you too much of a coward to admit it? You paid the assassin who tried to kill our cousin. You were in contact with Milady d’Angelica from the start, and she was the one who had our father killed.”

  “I didn’t know that was her plan,” Endi said.

  “Do you expect me to believe that?” Oli demanded, and now his voice filled the great hall. “You were ready to come back just as soon as he died. Even if you didn’t plan it, you must have known. At the very least, you took advantage of his death to steal Ishjemme!”

  “Ishjemme was mine to take!” Endi roared back. “I was the strongest of the heirs. Did you think you should be duke?”

  “That has never been how our laws have worked,” Oli insisted. “The king or queen decides.”

  “So you want to give Ishjemme to the rule of outsiders?” Endi demanded. He was angrier with his brother than he’d thought. He’d believed that Oli had understood, but clearly not. And now this; now his brother had brought traitors into his hall.

  “I want Ishjemme to follow laws,” Oli said. “It has laws, and traditions, and people. You’ve trampled over all three, Endi. Can’t you see that? You’ve murdered people to secure your rule. You’ve killed more when they wouldn’t give up their lands for this canal idea of yours. What are you trying to achieve?”

  “Progress,” Endi said, acidly. “I know it’s an alien concept to you, Oli, but sometimes the world moves on from the stories of the past. I’m trying to make Ishjemme safe, secure, and powerful. Yes, those who stand too hard against it are getting hurt, but it will improve the lives of everyone else! It will make things better.”

  Oli shook his head. “It stops today.”

  Endi snorted at that. “What are you planning to do, Oli? Cut me down in my own hall? So much for doing things according to the laws. Or are you going to challenge me to duel like they did in the sagas? Is that what you came here to do?”

  “No,” Oli said. “I came here to talk to you. I came here to persuade you that what you’re doing is wrong, and that you should step down for the good of all of Ishjemme.”

  Endi sat back on his seat pointedly. “That isn’t going to happen.”

  “Then we’ll take you into custody,” Oli said, gesturing to the men and boys around him. “Rika will rule until our brothers and sisters get back, and you’ll answer to all of us for the things you’ve done.”
<
br />   “Rika?” Endi said, and then laughed. “You want her to rule?”

  “The people love her, Endi,” Oli said. “Even as we speak, they’re rising up to support her. If you try to cling onto power, you’ll be fighting every man and woman of Ishjemme. Now, will you come quietly, or do we have to take you by force?”

  “Planning to use that sword after all, Oli?” Endi said. “That’s two good jokes in as many breaths. Here’s my answer.”

  He gave a piercing whistle, and men thundered into the hall. Good men. Paid men. They spread out around the little knot of conspirators. Endi pointed to the two guardsmen and nodded. Musket fire rang out and the two men went down, their bodies ripped apart by the lead shot. Oli and the others stood there looking stunned. It made it easy for Endi’s men to move in and disarm them.

  “Boys playing at being men,” Endi said with contempt. He stepped forward and punched his brother, hard, feeling his knuckles bruise under the impact. “How dare you try to take what’s mine? How dare you?”

  “Endi—”

  Endi hit his brother again. “No, shut up! You lost your chance to talk when you betrayed me. You don’t get any say in what happens now. I decide.” He looked around at the young men. His first instinct was to have them taken out and hanged where everybody could see them. But he wasn’t ruled by his instincts.

  “Take them all and put them in cells,” he said to his men. “They’ll serve as hostages for the behavior of their families when they get back from the war. Oli too. I won’t suffer traitors.”

  He dragged his brother to his feet.

  “Did you really think I had no idea what was going on?” Endi demanded. “Did you think I didn’t know about your little betrayal? Every guard who sided with you will die. Every person who stands with Rika will suffer for it, because it’s the only way they’ll learn.”