They didn’t reply. Together, they tugged at the iron rings of the enormous wooden gates and pulled.
We entered a vast courtyard, past a grove of fruit trees, most of which were flowering at that time of the year. Clumps of moss grew from the cracks in the stone footpath—some had flowers on them, too, red and purple capsules shining with dew. One of the priests led us up the path as while the other closed the gates behind us. Another man waited for us between the arches that marked the entrance to the temple. He was clad in regular clothes, not priest robes. He bowed when we approached, so low it looked like he would tip over.
“Let me guess,” I said, before he could speak. “You’re the missing mayor.”
He looked up and blinked at me. “Missing? I don’t—”
“Feng, isn’t it? Your daughter was most insistent that you were on a trip. Of course, since she couldn’t be bothered to lie properly, we all thought you’d be here. We were right.” I patted his shoulder. “That’s all right. I understand the need for secrecy. Maybe you just wanted a vacation, maybe you’ve got a lover up here…I hear priests can be very sensual…”
He turned red. “It’s nothing of that sort.”
“I don’t know what it is you’ve heard about me, but believe me, I don’t take heads off for no reason. Speak truthfully and you’ve got nothing to fear.” I dropped my hand to my sword and cocked my head at him with what I hoped was an innocent-looking expression. “Would you happen to know where my guards are? They went up here yesterday. They haven’t returned since and we didn’t see them on the road.”
“They—”
“Ah hah!” I exclaimed. “So they were here.”
“We were told you don’t accept most visitors,” Rai broke in.
“We—we didn’t accept them,” Feng stammered. “We caught them spying. The priests brought them in.”
“Spying?” I pretended to look surprised. “They came here to speak to you on my behalf. What would they be spying on? Is there something you’re hiding?”
“Such a violation of Holy Shimesu’s sacred grounds…”
“Enough of this,” Rai said. “You know the queen. Do you know me?”
“Lord Rayyel, of course,” Feng replied, turning to him. “Forgive me if—”
“Lord? Not Dragonlord? Not even Prince?” I wondered out loud. “Whoever told him about us doesn’t acknowledge Rayyel’s position.”
“You don’t, either,” Khine whispered behind me.
“That’s not the point,” I hissed back.
“Considering that Lord Rayyel was never officially crowned…” Feng stammered.
“Yes, yes, we know all about that,” I said. I walked past him and started up the steps.
Feng turned around. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You’re not in charge. And the fact that you’re here means it’s not the priests, either. I promised I’d look into this and I will.”
“Could it be Qun?” Khine asked.
“Qun’s soldiers were still near the mines,” Rai answered.
“That’s because they were looking for you,” Khine replied.
“I wasn’t aware I was the object of their investigation.”
“You just slipped by them without even realizing—oh. I think I get it, now.”
“Get what?”
“Nothing.”
I held my hand out to silence them both as we strode into the antechamber. Even though we were indoors now, the damp smell of moss and clay pervaded the air, strong enough that I could feel it on my skin. We walked past small alcoves lit with white candles and reached a large, circular hall, where sunlight streamed from three windows on the domed ceiling. The multiple light sources made our shadows jump with every motion.
Feng’s sandals clicked on the floor as he caught up with us. “Queen Talyien, I must insist that you not go any further. Lord Rayyel has it right. The priests do prefer not to entertain visitors, but they made an exception in your case and it would be best if we respected the sanctity of these halls.”
“Sanctity,” I said dryly, turning to face him. “Tell me, Mayor Feng, what sanctity is there in allowing your villagers to be drained of blood by power-hungry mages?”
He looked at me in shock. “The blood—it’s to help find a cure for the featherstone ailments. Surely one of the villagers would’ve told you.”
“Notice he didn’t deny the power-hungry mage part,” Khine said.
“You’re right.” I stepped towards him. “You’re housing mages here. No sense denying it, Feng—Belfang has already admitted as much. Also, another interesting thing…Lord Rayyel found the effigies you’ve been keeping in the mines. Maybe you can explain that, too, before we write a strongly worded note to your Esteemed Emperor in Kyan Jang. Your involvement won’t be overlooked.”
“What?” Feng stammered. “I didn’t know—I had nothing to do with what you’re saying.”
“He didn’t know,” Khine droned. “So what do you know?”
“I told you—the cure…” The skin on his cheeks jiggled in his confusion.
“These effigies, these dummies, are full of the villagers’ blood,” I said, taking one step towards him. He backed away. “Blood that offers a connection to the agan, that allows a mage to control these things using the villagers’ as a source of energy. How do you think the villagers are going to react when they find out you’ve sold their souls in exchange for—what? What did they give you, Feng? Money to build that nice house? Promises of safety, maybe a nice cushy position away from this hellhole? Do you know how bad this is going to look if the Empire finds out? Blood magic is outlawed.”
I heard clapping—each one loud and crisp as it bounced through the hollow halls.
“Excellent, my queen,” a voice called out. “Excellent. I didn’t expect less from you.”
The blood left my face. The voice was familiar—not the sort of familiar that came with meeting a long-lost friend or even a friendly acquaintance. It was a sound that sent a chill through my bones, with a timbre that came from the depths of hell.
~~~
A figure appeared from the end of the hall. Distorted and misshapen, it ambled slowly towards us before stopping underneath a shaft of sunlight. It turned to me and grinned.
“Yuebek,” I said. I had not intended to say it out as loud as I did. I was hoping the word alone would break the dream and I would wake up panting back in the inn or the side of the road somewhere. But I could hear Khine’s shallow breathing behind me as he swore under his breath, which told me that he was seeing exactly what I was. I realized why Qun’s soldiers had stopped chasing us the moment we reached Phurywa and why he hadn’t killed me back in Anzhao. What was in front of me was real, without a shadow of a doubt—somehow, despite my insistence, my worst fears had come true. Yuebek was alive, and I had walked into one of his traps yet again.
The grin on the figure’s face widened. “So,” he said. “You do care.”
I didn’t know what part of him I should look at. He looked enough like the Yuebek I knew, the mad prince that had attempted to manipulate me several times over the past few months. It was the eyes, I think, the wide open look and that fixed expression of sheer delight, as if he found everything about this whole situation amusing. I didn’t know anyone else who could seem so perpetually out of touch with reality as the man.
If you could even call him a man anymore. I had last seen him crumpled on the ground in a burning room, bleeding from a wound caused by Agos’ sword. And that wasn’t hard to believe—part of him was covered in burnt skin, all shades of black and flesh and purple. All of these were interspersed with a substance that appeared to be lumps of red clay, stuffed into holes, as if someone had hastily tried to fix him up after he had been chewed up by a dog.
The rest of him—which included most of his forehead, the lower portion of his mouth, and the entire right side of his face—looked clean, untouched. He didn’t look like any of the burn victims I’d encountered
before, where you could see the natural transition between scarred and uninjured flesh. Yuebek looked like an unfinished doll, and moved with all the jerky imprecision of one.
It would be pointless to ask how he had survived. He had, somehow. If Namra had used the agan to prevent me from succumbing to the featherstone, what more could a group of mages under control of a prince? And it probably didn’t hurt that he was a mage himself, too. I didn’t have to know how—I only had to realize that this was all possible, that my perception was limited because of all the things I didn’t know.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” I said with a smile, counting on the calmness of my voice to carry me through the rest of the conversation. Already, I was trying to make note of the quickest exits. The walls of the courtyard were very tall—could we climb over them? Could we break down the gates? If he attacked, could I use Feng as a shield?
“Explain this abomination.” Rai’s voice brought me crashing back to reality. I felt my palms begin to sweat. I had led Rai right into the heart of this mess.
Yuebek began to laugh. “This…” he said, ambling closer. From that distance, I noticed that the untainted parts of him were well-groomed—his beard was oiled and trimmed, and despite his horrendous appearance, he was dressed as befitting a prince. He peered at Rai, his eyes growing even wider. “The famous Prince Rayyel!” he exclaimed. “Son of Princess Ryia, the witch that was ever the thorn in Warlord Yeshin’s side. How excellent! They told me you had arrived with her, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
Unaware of his own awkward movements, he jerked himself into a bow. I stepped back, revulsion stirring in the back of my throat. Liquid was oozing out of the holes, along with globs of coagulated blood. The villagers…
“You have to forgive me,” he said, picking himself up. “I’m not at my best right now. The circumstances of our last…unfortunate meeting…” He casually dabbed at the liquid with a handkerchief, as if he was wiping away mere dots of sweat. “I’ve been in recuperation the past few months. Hiding out here, ahh—such glorious mountain air is good for the lungs. Especially ones as badly damaged as mine had been.”
“Good for you,” I said. I was still wondering if I should attack him or run. He would have other traps laid out for me.
“Good?” Yuebek replied. He took another step closer, and I could smell him now—a curious mixture of rotting flesh and moldy earth. My stomach curdled; I struggled to keep my senses. “I wonder if you think flattery will get you somewhere. I know how I look. Don’t worry—my mages do good work and they’re just getting started. You looked surprised. My mages—of course they’re mine. They’ve been mine for years. Consider this my summer home.”
“Well—” I reached out for anything coherent I could say. “It’s lovely. I’m sure the breeze is refreshing.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Rai broke in.
“Right,” I said. “Lord Rayyel, meet Prince Yuebek, Fifth Son of the Esteemed Emperor Yunan. I believe you are acquainted with the name, if not the man.”
Rai looked outraged. “This isn’t a prince,” he said. “This is an abomination.”
“I was going to get to that. We had ah…what was it you said? An unfortunate meeting the last time?”
Yuebek nodded eagerly, oblivious to our insults. “The Queen does know how to reject a man.”
“My lord husband is aware of your offer to me. We have also discussed your involvement that has resulted in the current state of affairs. So you can understand why neither of us look particularly thrilled.” If I didn’t have years of training in diplomacy, I would’ve found it very hard to talk to him without spitting on his face.
“I see,” Yuebek said. “Did you tell him everything?”
“What does he mean?” Rayyel asked.
Yuebek turned to Rai. “I did ask the queen to set you aside and marry me.” His holes dripped with every word. I was afraid his eyes would pop out and fall to the floor—I didn’t want to step on them while he was speaking. “Did she tell you why?”
“An army of twenty thousand,” I said. “I told you that’s not quite enough to sway me. My husband and I have obligations to fulfill.”
“So you didn’t tell him,” Yuebek said. Evidently, he found this hilarious, because he started laughing so hard I thought he was going to hack out a lung. Considering the way his body seemed to be assembled, it didn’t look impossible. He finally caught himself and reached out to grab Rai’s shoulder.
Rai knocked his hand away before it could touch him. “You’ve got the nerve…” Rai began.
The grin fell from Yuebek’s face. “No. No, Lord Rayyel, though I shouldn’t even call you that, should I? You—a bastard.” He spat. “In this empire, we throw infants like you in the rivers. Or raise them as kennel boys and the only royal blood they’ll ever get to fuck is if they decide to do it with one of the hounds. Warlord Yeshin knew that. He never wanted her to marry you for that reason. Oh, he went through the whole pretense of the pact and your betrothal for the good of your nation, but did you really think Yeshin would’ve allowed your grubby hands on his precious daughter if he’d been around? He hated your mother. Hated her so much he would’ve strangled her with his own hands if he had ever been given the opportunity.” He lifted his finger and jabbed Rai on the chest so hard I expected the appendage to fall off. “I was promised to her first, bastard.”
Rai’s face tightened. “Explain this.” He glanced towards me.
“He’s convinced my father had betrothed his unborn daughter—if she should be a daughter—to him during The War of the Wolves. My father wanted his mother’s help to get rid of yours. He says that Warlord Yeshin made this elaborate plan to get rid of you before we could even marry so that I could marry him instead. But that somehow, it didn’t work, and so instead…” I lifted my eyes to meet my husband’s. “He infiltrated our plans to meet up in Anzhao City and orchestrated this farce that resulted in my men betraying me. In me being left all alone in this country, vulnerable, so that he could swoop in and play the hero. He wanted me to be grateful for it, too.”
“Him,” Rai said evenly. “A Zarojo.” Even after hearing all of this, he remained calm.
“A Zarojo,” Yuebek repeated, “with royal blood. As detestable as I’m sure Warlord Yeshin found it—I am not blind to what he thought of the empire in those times—it was still vastly preferable to having his daughter given to a penniless bastard. I am the Esteemed Emperor’s Yunan’s trueborn son, with the blood of a long line of emperors running through me. You, on the other hand…didn’t your father peg your mother in the back of the stables during the war?”
Rai’s hand flew to his sword. I grabbed his arm. “Don’t,” I whispered. “He’s a mage.”
“He looks like he’s about to fall apart,” Rai said in a low voice.
“The queen is right, my lord,” Namra spoke up. “I can detect an enormous connection to the agan within him. It would be wise to avoid violence.”
Rai gritted his teeth. “Is this true, that this was Warlord Yeshin’s desire?”
“It’s not,” I said.
“I have proof,” Yuebek grinned.
“Choke on your proof. My father would’ve never lied to me.”
“Never? Such words, my lovely queen…and yet—Yeshin was never known for his honesty, was he?” He turned to Rai. “Step aside. Let me marry the queen and you can walk out of here alive. That’s all I want. It’s all I ever wanted. You are so unimportant that even your death would be more of an inconvenience than anything else.”
“You are insane,” Rai whispered. “To think that we would just let Jin-Sayeng fall under Zarojo rule after we have narrowly avoided it for centuries…”
“Zarojo rule is inevitable,” Yuebek said. He drew away from us and began to glide back to the middle of the hall. “The way you both ran it to the ground, Jin-Sayeng is teetering on the edge of a war bloodier than what your mother—” He pointed at Rai before glancing back at me. “—a
nd your father could have ever conceived. Queen Talyien, your people love wolves. Do you still have wolves in Jin-Sayeng? Didn’t your dragons pick them all out centuries ago?”
“You’re starting to bore me,” I said.
He giggled. “We still have wolves. You know what they do, don’t you? They go after the weakest of the herd.” He curled his fingers and gnashed his teeth. “If the herd is Jin-Sayeng, who is the weak, the blind, and the cripple? Could it be any of your warlords, sitting in their castles and keeps while their soldiers sweat and train for the inevitable? Is it Dai alon gar Kaggawa, with his army of sellswords growing stronger by the day? Or could it be these two bedraggled figures before me: this lovesick queen and her bastard king?”
He extended his arms and snapped his fingers. I heard footsteps and saw hooded figures dragging two captives behind them. My heart leaped to my throat as the light revealed their faces.
“Your servants,” Yuebek said as his men pushed Agos and Nor to their knees. “Such loyalty. Such devotion. This one, in particular…” He grabbed Agos’ chin and stroked it. “Perhaps I was wrong about Rayyel. Wasn’t it this one’s cock that you prefer?”
I threw caution to the wind and lunged at him.
An unseen force smashed into my side, sending me sprawling across the floor. As I struggled to regain my balance, I turned and saw my guards on the ground, their hands clutched around their necks. Something was sliding its way out of their jaws. I realized, with horror, that it was a snake, exactly like in my dreams.
“Don’t worry,” I heard Yuebek whisper next to my ear, just as his death-stench hit me. “When I put a child in your belly, it won’t look like that.”
I smashed my elbow backwards. It caught Yuebek in the chest. I felt something begin to swallow my arm, which made me jump to the side in shock. There was a gaping hole on Yuebek’s body where I had hit him.
He looked down at it and smiled. “Still a work in progress,” he said. “In time, I will be whole again.”
“What are you?” I gasped.
“The sweetest dream,” he crooned. “Or your worst nightmare. It’s up to you.”
The Ikessar Falcon Page 16
