Kings and Assassins

by Lane Robins

  Give me your command, and I will obey.

  “I command you,” Psyke said, her voice gaining strength. “By your people that I hold to me, I command you to do my bidding.”

  Haith fell to his knees before her, His hood falling forward and shadowing even more of His face. “Command Me as you will, Lady of Redoubt. Name your victory.”

  Janus cringed, his hands flying to his ears, but where Ani's voice was glass shard ruin to Her hearers, Haith's was the quiet whisper of a last sigh before death.

  Adiran's feathers bristled; his eyes burned blackly, and talons now tipped his fingers, clicked against each other around the steel sword hilt. “Begone, Brother Worm. Crawling thing.”

  Haith's attention never veered from Psyke. Her hands trembled; her eyes tore themselves from the kneeling god and found Ivor.

  Janus's own hands were knotting, tacky with his blood and Nadiyeh's, wondering what Psyke intended. If she set the god on Ivor … If she set Him on Adiran …

  There was no chance for victory that Janus saw.

  Psyke's eyes flared blue; her voice rang out: “Haith, rid us of Black-Winged Ani!”

  Ani shrieked outrage; Haith's head rose, His hood fell back, revealing furrowed scale and twisting horn. Psyke's gaze never faltered. “Backed by the dead, I command You.”

  Haith rose, stiff now where He had been fluid before, like a man gone old before his time with a sudden shock. “We are connected,” He said, “kindred all…. Kill one of Us, and the others tumble into the grave.”

  Psyke said, “We have no need for gods.”

  Haith exhaled the scent of incense, old woods and leaf rot, of the cold that came on a first winter morning. “As you will—”

  Adiran's body shuddered, swelled, burst into strange flesh, becoming a creature of multiple talon-tipped wings, with a beak grown long, curled, and sharp edged. Black-Winged Ani birthed god's flesh out of mortal clay, and aimed Her rage at Psyke.

  Psyke never quailed, trusting Haith, trusting that her command would be obeyed. Janus's belly clenched; if Haith dallied, went reluctantly to Psyke's command, Ani would free Him of the need to do so.

  But Haith's shadow enveloped Black-Winged Ani, dragged Her screeching into the stone, pinning Her wings, and holding Her back.

  “Brother!” Ani screamed.

  Janus fell to his knees, the sound echoing in his head, savaging tissue in its path. His face was wet; his vision red tinged, and all his senses were overlaid by blood. Distantly, he saw Ivor curled on the dock.

  Haith hissed, tightened His shadow about Her, like a coiling serpent. His hands fastened claws into Her wings, piercing the membranes, spilling feathers along the docks, turning the ocean waters black with sodden feathers and red with blood. Janus spared a moment to mourn Adiran, trapped beneath Her skin, and Haith's eyes turned toward him, green as grass and slitted.

  “Never mourn one who is not gone,” He said. “It only tempts Me to take notice….”

  Ani shrieked again, Her wings batting at His face, and Haith plunged a sharp-scaled hand into her breast. She quivered, but fell silent.

  Dead? Janus doubted it; love and vengeance seemed as immutable as death. Haith hissed in pained satisfaction, and began to sink into the stone with a susurrus of scale, dragging the dark ruin of Ani's manifested body after Him, sweeping blood from the docks as neatly as any wave. Perhaps not dead, but defeated nonetheless.

  When He had gone completely, there was a pale glimmer left, a child curled up, eyes closed as if sleeping.

  Psyke sighed softly and collapsed, leaving Janus wobbling on his feet, and torn in two directions: See to his wife? See to whatever remained of Adiran? A wave of heat, a stinging swirl of smoke reminded him that there was still Murne to see to, the plague and the fires to recover from, if possible.

  A scrape of metal heralded Ivor rising to his feet, using his saber for balance. The two men faced each other across a dozen feet, and Ivor raised his blade after a moment. “Well then? Shall we duel for the remains of the dead?”

  Janus staggered forward, every bone aching, and thinking bitter thoughts about Maledicte, about Adiran, about Psyke, who had a god's healing touch on their wounds, and never knew what it was like to be burdened by exhaustion and pain and still have a task to do.

  He shouldered past Ivor, ignoring the blade, and taking up the boat hook. The dinghy was close enough; the inbound waves urging it onward. The boat pole thunked against the solid edge of the craft, jarred his bones.

  Janus said, “Return to your ships, Ivor: your ships, and your kingdom. You are not welcome in mine.”

  He dodged the blade Ivor sent toward his neck. Ivor's face burned with rage, all his poise stripped. “I will not go home a failure,” he hissed. “I would rather die here—”

  Janus stumbled, fell back, and when Ivor tried to close on him, curled up and kicked out in a Relict rat's last-resort attempt to be rid of an attacker. Ivor took the blow in his belly, skidded into the water with a splash and a groan. Janus clambered back to his feet with every bone protesting.

  “I'll unwind the gates,” Janus said. “Grigor's ship approaches. If you're not feeling energetic enough to row yourself out to him, you can wait for the tide to go out. Explain to him that the treaty was broken by your assassination of Aris. We will not accept censure. And we will expect an apology.”

  Janus leaned over the side with the boat hook, watched Ivor splash out of the way to cling to the other side of the dinghy, and then he pushed the boat farther from the dock. Ivor cursed, and clambered aboard rather than be rubbed against barnacle-studded pilings. “I've left you a kingdom of rubble,” Ivor said.

  “I've begun there before,” Janus said. “I know how to rise above it. Can you say the same?”

  Ivor went silent and the boat slowly moved away, guided by a single oar and Ivor's pained exertions.

  A faint whimper roused Janus from his contemplation of the lightening sky, and the sails on the horizon. He crawled to his feet, and found Adiran sitting up, knuckling his eyes, and beginning to sob. Janus held back, blade at hand, wary. If Ani were not gone—

  “I had a bad dream,” Adiran wailed. “I want my father! I want Evan!”

  Janus collapsed beside the boy, studying him in the dawning day. There were still dark tufts in his hair, though whether the feathers were merely matted in by blood or growing outward was unclear. And when Adiran shot a frightened glance up at Janus, one eye was still mottled black and blue. Janus felt the hilt of his dagger in his hand.

  No one could say it was murder, now. Not with the marks of Ani's possession still so clear on the boy; Rue would support him. As would Bull. A single blow—the child all unwitting; even now, he leaned against Janus's side seeking comfort—and the throne would be his. There'd be no palaver about regency, about acceptability; he'd be their only choice.

  Adiran pushed himself more urgently into Janus's arms. Then again, Janus thought. Adiran was himself once more, sweet natured, simpleminded, hardly a threat to Janus's ambitions. The boy twisted in his arms and looked up at him with such weary intelligence that Janus remembered Adiran had shared his misery in complete sentences, a feat he had been incapable of, before.

  He patted the boy absently, and tried to think. Everything that had once been so clear was muddled now. Maledicte—his spur, his purpose—was gone. The throne was one blade thrust from his reach, and he hesitated.

  If he chose to leave Adiran alive and improving, he would only ever ascend to regent. Adiran would grow, take the throne, have children, and the opportunity would pass. Would he miss it? Janus rested his chin on Adiran's head, smelled blood and feathers and thought of Maledicte crying, When is it enough?

  In the beginning it had been only about rising faster, rising higher, securing a future for himself and his lover, beyond the capacities of the world to take it away. But now—the future he wanted secure was for his country. If he were king, surrounded by guards, tethered by propriety and rules, could he accomplish enough? Ev
en as regent, would he accomplish anything, or would his days be lost to petty political maneuverings?

  He raised Adiran a little, let the boy's head loll back on his shoulder, baring his throat. It wouldn't be a bad death; the boy had fallen back into a fitful sleep. Adiran would simply never wake. There'd be a single, startled cry, nothing more.

  His gut spasmed; a cold chill ran his spine. The infant hadn't cried either and yet it still haunted his dreams. He lowered the blade. He didn't want the throne—not like this. Not under duress and suspicion, not with the rest of his life spent guarding his back. How little would he accomplish if his every moment was spent ensuring his own safety?

  Ivor had once offered him a position as king's knight, and though it had been for a country not his own, the idea had appealed. Perhaps he could make a new place for himself in Antyre. Not useless regent, not hated king, but something else. Someone who held power and used it for the betterment of the country. There'd be profit in it for both him and Antyre if he was clever. And despite Ivor's schemes nearly snaring him, Janus knew himself to be a clever man.

  He flipped the dagger around, considering the idea one last time—this moment would not come again—and then dropped the blade to the blood-washed dock.

  “I'm pleased to see your judgment improves,” Psyke said behind him. A breeze touched his neck, and he heard the rustle of steel falling away.

  He jerked around, waking Adiran to fretful crying, his startled gaze all for the blade Psyke was lowering. How long had she stood there, silently waiting to play executioner? Perhaps she had told herself the same stories he had told himself: that he would never notice, that no one could object….

  She held out a hand to him—small, soft, aristocratic even with blood-rimmed nails, everything Maledicte had never been—and he took it in his, let her help him to his feet.

  Miranda had been his heart, his purpose, but she was also his past. Psyke, Adiran, Antyre… these were his future.

  She sighed, looking back toward the palace, to the fading streamers of smoke going hazy in the morning light. “So very much damage,” she said. “Death and fires and plague. Despair and distrust. So much to repair.”

  “Not to repair,” Janus said, mind already working. “To improve. We're moving forward for the first time in generations.”

  Some of the strung-wire tension in her shoulders eased; a tiny smile blossomed at the corners of her mouth, a barely there tilt that once he would have mistaken for either no expression at all or a sneer.

  Adiran tugged Janus's sleeve with cautious fingers, still wary, still uncertain, and said, “The ship's leaving.”

  It was true. The scarlet sails thinned themselves in the corona of the rising sun, as the ship tacked onto a different course.

  Janus watched it for the space of two heartbeats, then shook his head. He draped an arm over Psyke's shoulders, shifting his weight to relieve the pressure put on his wounds, trusting her support would be freely given. Adiran watched, brow furrowed, and then he pressed himself against Janus's other side. Together, bound by need and loss, they moved forward into the city.

  About the Author

  LANE ROBINS was born in Miami, Florida, the daughter of two scientists, and grew up as the first human member of their menagerie. When it came time for a career, it was a hard choice between veterinarian and writer. It turned out to be far more fun to write about blood than to work with it. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Beloit College, and currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

  www.maledicte.com

  Kings and Assassins is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Del Rey Trade Paperback Original

  Copyright © 2009 by Lane Robins

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Robins, Lane.

  Kings and assassins/Lane Robins.

  p. cm.

  “A Del Rey Books trade paperback original”—T.p. verso.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-51269-7

  1. Courts and courtiers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618O3177K56 2009

  813′.6—dc22

  2009001348

  www.delreybooks.com

  v3.0