Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  The slight tightness in her gaze, however, encouraged him to finish saying his goodbyes and move quickly on, because, well, there were hundreds of people standing in line behind him, all of whom the zanthyr had basically cut in front of when he’d walked Felix directly onto the dais.

  Phaedor was standing there still, like a stone rolled over the king’s tomb, blocking off the entire dais to give Felix time to look over the literato’s body. Nobody had raised a word of protest—at least not out loud.

  Felix supposed that was one of the perks of being widely known as Björn van Gelderan’s zanthyr. People might despise you, but nobody was fool enough to challenge you.

  Phaedor probably would’ve stood there all night, just flipping his dagger and ignoring all the hateful stares aimed at his back, but Felix had seen enough. He glanced to the zanthyr by way of saying let’s get the hell out of here and descended the dais down the far side. The dark shadow that was Phaedor rejoined his side soon thereafter.

  There was something thrilling and yet deeply unsettling about walking beside the zanthyr. It was kind of like crossing a thin strip of icy bridge over a wide abyss, with the wind and the elements doing their damndest to knock you off into oblivion. Since Felix was used to walking death’s precipitous edge—eight older brothers and a Nodefinder’s innate sense of recklessness had seen to that—he rather enjoyed the sensation.

  As they were heading out of the temple, he saw that the line of people waiting to pay their respects to N’abranaacht extended down the steps, through the lamp-lit piazza, and around the corner of another building. You had to be pretty damn devoted to stand in a line that long so late into the night just to see a dead guy.

  Felix looked at all the people queued up and made a face. “I mean…that can’t be good.”

  “A safe assumption when speaking of Shailabanáchtran.”

  Felix shifted his gaze to the zanthyr. “You know, he sure looked dead.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  “How?” Felix hardened his gaze on him. “How can looks be deceiving?”

  He’d spent only a day with the zanthyr so far and already he was desperate for a straight reply. Phaedor’s idea of an answer was a bowlful of hints smothered with ambiguities. You had to dig and dig through all that tasteless mush to find even a morsel that had some substance to it. No wonder the High Lord winced every time the zanthyr came in the room.

  They reached the bottom of the temple stairs and started across the piazza beneath a starry sky, whereupon Felix grumbled, “I think I understand why Tanis said you could be infuriating.”

  The zanthyr cast him a sidelong eye speared between his raven curls. “I think I understand how you will find your way into an early grave.”

  “Ha. Very ha.” Felix searched his mind for some kind of retort, but an uncomfortable thought struck him instead. “Wait—” he did a double take at the zanthyr, “was that prophecy just now? Were you speaking of my actual future? Or…I mean, were you just, you know, making a point?”

  The zanthyr summoned one of his dark daggers out of nowhere and began flipping it as they walked. This drew a lot of attention. “The future belongs to no man, and every man.”

  “Wow, I love it when you talk in paradoxes.” Felix looked ahead wearing a pinched expression. “It’s just so much fun trying to figure out what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I’m relieved you appreciate my charms.”

  “Yeah, I know that tone from you.”

  Phaedor grinned at him. “Is that so?” He flipped his dagger again.

  “And I know the meaning of that smile.” Felix shoved hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “I’m onto you. I’m no fool.”

  “I don’t keep company with fools.”

  Felix gave a skeptical grunt. “You’re sure good at making us think you do. Must be thrilling, staring down upon the fools of the world from Know It All Peak.”

  The zanthyr’s chuckle sounded much like the low rumble of distant thunder. “It does get rather lonely up there.”

  As they walked past the long line of people waiting to see N’abranaacht, every head turned to stare at the zanthyr. It was like a ripple effect, heads turning in sequence all the way down the line, one after another, like the zanthyr was hooking each man or woman’s attention and dragging it after him. Except, of course, that the zanthyr acted like he didn’t notice any of their shameless staring, despite practically the entire piazza gaping at him.

  “So…N’abranaacht.” Felix made his N’abranaacht face. Like the way the zanthyr had a particular smile he offered in place of certain answers, Felix was developing grimaces and expressions to reflect his opinion on important subjects. The N’abranaacht face was the one he would use for heinous traitors masquerading as popular public attractions. “Is he dead then…or not?”

  The zanthyr flipped his dagger. “I expect we have seen the last of the Literato N’abranaacht.”

  Felix harrumphed disagreeably. “Now see,” he shoved his finger towards the zanthyr, “you say one thing, but you mean something else entirely. Sancto Spirito, I’ll bet you can’t say just one bloody thing and mean it and it alone. I’ll bet you don’t even know how to be forthright.”

  “Perhaps you should teach me.”

  “And there you go again.” Felix leaned forward to capture the zanthyr’s amused gaze. “You didn’t just mean that I should teach you. You meant that I’m the last person who should be lecturing you on being forthright.” Felix shoved hands back into his pockets. “Like I said, I’m onto your tricks.”

  The zanthyr grinned. “Rue the day.”

  “So…” Felix scrunched his upper lip towards his nose and his nose towards his upper lip. It was his ‘thinking of something unpleasant’ face, or possibly his ‘taking a shite’ face. They’d looked rather similar when he was practicing them in the mirror. “The Literato N’abranaacht’s done for, but we haven’t seen the last of that Shail fellow, by Cephrael’s ill eye. That was your meaning. But that wasn’t all of your meaning.” Felix sucked on a tooth while he speculated on the rest of the zanthyr’s meaning. “Something significant about N’abranaacht…about the N’abranaacht disguise.” He looked suddenly to the zanthyr. “That’s it, isn’t it? Shail killed off the N’abranaacht disguise because he was done with it. Which means…” He frowned while trying to figure out what it could mean.

  The zanthyr flipped his dagger.

  Felix watched the black blade whipping through the air a few times. “Yeah…so how long did you say Shail had been masquerading as a Palmer?”

  “Centuries.”

  Felix blew out his breath. “I don’t get it. Why give it up now? You told me—I mean, you strongly implied—that the Adepts he took from the Sormitáge were hardly even worth considering. So what did he really accomplish by causing such chaos at the Quai game?”

  “That is the pertinent question.”

  Felix shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “I hate it when you say that.”

  The zanthyr cast him an amused look. “There is one time-tested way to move a figure from obscurity to notoriety and ensure his cause—however shallow or insignificant—is carried forward by the masses.”

  Felix thought about all of the obscure, insignificant causes that his cousin Phoebe and his mother had routinely prattled on about—the plight of Llerenas-Onstaz pottery makers, who made crappy pots, so of course no one would buy them, and the Gideon birds on Palma Lai, who were too stupid to fly to an island that wasn’t routinely blowing itself up, and some weird frog that was eating its way through all the flower bulbs and endangering the Ijssmar Tulip Festival…

  Felix assumed his thinking hard face again. “I’m not sure I see your point.”

  The zanthyr gave him a droll look that said he was quite sure Felix was never going to see his point even if he speared him hard in the arse with it. “A simple formula: you make a martyr out of him.”

  Felix hissed an oath in his native Caladrian that tr
anslated roughly into I’ll be Belloth’s ball-sucker! He stared at the piazza stones, unseeing, as the memory of events at the stadium flashed before his eyes.

  “He made a martyr of himself—certo, it’s practically punching you in the face, it’s so obvious.” He looked back to the zanthyr. “And now, everything that was supposedly important to N’abranaacht is important to the masses of Faroqhar.” Felix shook his head and exhaled a slow breath. “It’s bloody brilliant.” He made the N’abranaacht face again and scowled at the night shadows on the pavement. “You know…I really despise that guy.”

  The zanthyr flipped the hair from his eyes and his dagger into the air. “You are not alone in this view.”

  “So what’s the cause that Shail pushed to the forefront by killing off the N’abranaacht disguise?”

  “That is the fateful question, Felix di Sarcova.” Phaedor turned his emerald gaze on Felix. “Let us hope the High Lord is asking it as well.”

  As it turned out, the High Lord di L'Arlesé was mostly asking why Felix di Sarcova needed to be included in their private discussions, especially when he clearly would have preferred to have excluded the zanthyr as well; but the Empress had asked for Phaedor’s counsel, so generally the High Lord’s eyes were alone in making this plea each time they strayed towards Felix in a rather pinched and weary fashion.

  Then again, the pinched weariness he saw in the High Lord’s expression might’ve just been commiseration, for surely they were both suffering from the malady known as Björn van Gelderan’s zanthyr—the High Lord probably more so than Felix. The zanthyr had a knack for finding the weak points in a man’s armor where his critiquing bolts might penetrate to their deepest mark. Felix had experienced this; fortunately, he wasn’t very sensitive about his weaknesses.

  The High Lord on the other hand…

  Felix well knew that stodgy, aristocratic type, even if he didn’t well know Marius—though he enjoyed the impertinence of thinking of him as ‘Marius’ instead of ‘Your Grace’—and a man like Marius, who was so wrapped in dignity that it took him a half-turn of the hourglass just to peel off enough layers to take a shite…a man like that didn’t well appreciate having his nose pushed into his failures like a pup being house-trained.

  While Felix had been getting his things moved from the Sormitáge to the Imperial Palace—do you hear that, Tanis? The Imperial Palace!—cleaning himself up, and visiting N’abranaacht—all beneath the zanthyr’s watchful eye, which Felix rather imagined served to keep both Felix and the zanthyr out of the High Lord’s hair—the Empress and her consort had been meeting with officials from the war ministry.

  By the time Felix returned with the zanthyr from their visit to N’abranaacht, the Empress had adjourned to her private apartments, but she’d left word that they were to be admitted.

  The High Lord received Phaedor into his home with a long suffering expression and Felix with a look of strained patience. It could not have been clearer how immensely irritated he was by the zanthyr’s imposition on his private time with his wife.

  Marius directed Felix to a chair with a warning look that said keep silent. As Felix was making a wallflower of himself, the Empress turned from a cabinet with two goblets in hand. She extended one to her consort with a sigh. “It is worse even than I imagined.”

  Marius accepted the proffered wine and retreated to the mantel.

  “This is my failure.” The Empress’s regretful tone mirrored her gaze. “If I had trusted your instincts, Marius, we would not be at such a desperate crossroads.”

  The High Lord gave a slight wince. “Valentina—”

  “No, Marius, you told me months ago that something strange was occurring with the nodes out of Daneland.”

  Marius regarded her gravely. “I didn’t know what it meant—I still don’t.”

  “But you warned me the Danes meant to revolt.” The Empress slowly moved from the cabinet towards a grouping of chairs, her motion across the thick carpets silent save for the whisper of her silk skirts. “That this attack could happen—that my daughter-heir could fall prey to it—these tragedies rest solidly upon my shoulders.” She paused before a chair and lifted a troubled gaze to her consort. “All of Alorin is talking about this event they’re calling ‘the Quai Fiasco.’ More than two hundred Adepts taken, Marius!”

  Marius laid a hand on the mantel, but Felix got the idea he was setting his patience there as well, the better to stare in the face of it. “I am well aware of it, Valentina.”

  She claimed a chair and arranged her skirts discontentedly. “Ineptus. That’s the word circulating on the streets. Our elite have become a source of ridicule.”

  “The Adeptus stands ready.”

  “Yes, too ready now that it is far too late.” She regarded him vexedly. “What I cannot fathom is how the Danes orchestrated any of this when they have no trained Adepts. This will be the argument thrown back at me by the Patrician Senate. They’ll want more than a toss of divining sticks pointing north. They’ll want proof that the Danes have the missing Adepts.”

  Marius dropped his gaze to his goblet and slowly swirled his wine. “Is there any doubt in your mind that Ansgar sits behind this act?”

  She considered him as she sat back in her chair. “If he does, why has my Sight shown none of his intent? Even the strongest wielders cannot hide from the Sight.”

  Phaedor remarked from the shadows, “When the Alorin Seat and his sister the High Mage of the Citadel were investigating early signs of imbalance in the realm, Isabel discovered that when a Malorin’athgul laid his mark across the path of a mortal bound to the tapestry, that mortal’s path became obscured or even completely inaccessible to the Sight.”

  Marius frowned at the zanthyr. “You want us to believe this is why Valentina cannot see Ansgar’s path?”

  Phaedor flipped his dagger. “The truth speaks, regardless of my opinion about it.”

  “I rather think it speaks only when it suits your opinion.”

  “Marius.” Valentina’s tone entreated his forbearance. Her gaze laced across Felix before coming to rest on the zanthyr in his darkened corner. “If only we had some proof that the Danes truly stand behind this treason—a trail linking to them across the nodes, or some sighting of the Adepts that were taken; even proof of this Malorin’athgul—something beyond the words of an adolescent, something concrete to bring to the Patrician Senate.”

  “The proof is all around you,” the zanthyr observed, green eyes aglow, only the motion of his flipping dagger occasionally catching the light from the low-burning fire or the room’s amber-glass lamps, “that is, should you choose to look beyond the deception cast specifically for your eyes.”

  The High Lord thrust his goblet onto the mantel. “Isn’t deception your own established trade? It was no mythical creature throwing deyjiin at the stadium—”

  “And no na’turna literato who worked the fifth to slay it.” The zanthyr’s words cracked sharply with rebuke.

  Marius’s expression hardened. “The Literato N’abranaacht was a valuable and productive Arcane Scholar in the Sormitáge for many decades.”

  The zanthyr arched a derisive brow. “Beneath your nose, all that time.”

  “Now he’s a celebrated hero—”

  “For slaying his own servant.”

  “—and now that the man lies dead, you do nothing but cast aspersions across his name.”

  “Some man lies there,” the zanthyr remarked from beyond the glint of his flipping dagger, “not Shailabanáchtran.”

  The High Lord threw up both hands. “For all we know, you could be in collusion with this so-called Shail—”

  “Marius, this prejudice is unproductive.” The Empress set down her wine and closed her fingers around the sculpted knobs of her chair arms. “Invading Danes we may file as commonplace, but how they crossed a twisted node—or corrupted it thereafter such that no one else could cross it—this must be lodged with the arcane. Likewise the demon creatures and their sorcery, which resem
bled deyjiin too nearly by all accounts.” Her gaze shifted to the zanthyr. “A na’turna literato is pedestrian, but one who works elae’s fifth strand in front of thousands is unqualifiable. And I can barely think about Nadia for its effect on my rationality.” She pressed fingertips to her brow. “It is difficult to frame these events into any cogent context.”

  Marius eyed the zanthyr with a dark rumination. “Rest assured it all frames within the context of his motives, Valentina.”

  The Empress studied her consort with a furrow between her brow. “Phaedor doesn’t walk the tapestry as you and I, Marius.” She cast an unreadable gaze at the zanthyr. “He has a different view—potentially a broader view.”

  Marius worked the muscles of his jaw. “Did he tell you that?”

  She gave him a soft smile. “No, mio caro…my father.”

  In the silence that descended while they held each other’s gaze, an uncomfortable energy built in the room. Felix noted that the zanthyr stood as remote from the two monarchs’ argument as a mountain from the deliberations of climbers attempting to scale its heights.

  “The attack at the Quai game constitutes an act of war.” Valentina riffled her fingers on her chair arms, deliberately, her gaze unfixed yet clearly focused on the stream of her thoughts. “It cannot go unpunished, lest the Empire become the laughingstock of the realm. Even if another stands behind this aggression, surely there can be no question in their minds that the Empire will retaliate against Daneland, and yet…”

  “I know your mind, Valentina.” Marius took his wine and left the mantel. “It seems nearly scripted—this invasion, our expected retaliation.”

  She focused her gaze on him. “I fear we could be walking into a trap.”

  The zanthyr flipped his dagger. “It is certainly a trap.”

  The High Lord cast him a strained look that was part entreaty and part stay the hell out of our conversation. To the Empress, he replied, “The Empire has always responded to acts of aggression with the might of the Adeptus.”