He snorted. “You and me both. The coin’s good, though. And the girls, they flock to men in armor. What’s in your little box there? Hoping to capture a man’s heart?” He tongued his cheek, undoubtedly hoping to elicit a reaction from Oriana.
Men like him, she knew, thrived on making women like her uncomfortable. It was about power, mostly. Sometimes the only way to make them stop was to teach them a lesson.
With a flick of her mind, she brought an illusionary imitation of herself onto the landing of the citadel. Another flick brought forth an illusionary locus that she stepped into. She shouldn’t have done this; using sorcery at this time wasn’t recommended given it could alert the Conclave to her presence. But this was small-time stuff; the Conclave viscars would barely sense anything.
She stepped out of the locus. She crumbled both illusions and, at the same time, threw an open hand into Quen’s crotch.
She squeezed.
“Ah!” he groaned. “What the—”
“I urge you to consider delivering to your master-at-arms your resignation from the Trident.” She twisted and he whimpered, went shaky in the knees. “Or I’ll break them. Do you know what it feels like to have them ripped off?”
With flared nostrils and a grimace, he shook his head.
“Neither do I, but I can imagine. Can you?”
Lip trembling, he clenched tighter to his pike. “What… are you?”
She released him. “A girl who doesn’t flock to a man in armor.” She put a hand into his chest, shoving herself away from him.
With hurt pride and equal parts enmity and pain, he felt around down there, hissing as a throbbing sensation went up into his belly.
Oriana waited patiently for the absent guard to return. When he did, he brought with him a rascally fellow with muttonchops and a fashionably inadvisable mustache that was as thin as dust.
“Lady Gravendeer,” the man said, “it is an honor to meet you. I am Sir Dorull, overseer of society affairs as they pertain to the crown.”
That’s a lengthy title, Oriana thought. “A pleasure. I hope I haven’t caught the queen at an inopportune time.”
“Not at all. She wishes to see you now. Follow me, please.”
Oriana gave one last look at Quen before entering the citadel. His eyes seemed to quiver, and his throat flinched. He probably thought he’d seen sorcery before his very eyes—and he had—but who would believe that Oriana Gravendeer was a sorceress? No one in all of Avestas.
Not yet.
The citadel was sometimes called the Eye of the Sea, and Oriana quickly discovered why. Enormous panes of glass framed its entire posterior, offering an unabated view into the restful Glass Sea.
A seemingly endless ramp wound around and around, up and up, forking off frequently to landings and hallways packed full of doors. Oriana wondered where the throne room was, and the Great Hall, and the Council Chambers. Presumably down one of the many hallways, because they were neither at the very bottom, where she’d already been, nor at the tip-top, where she’d just arrived.
There, at the summit of the citadel, stood a landing leading to a single door cut from emerald wood. An eel wearing a crown had been carved into its face, lit a fiery orange from two nearby sconces.
Sir Dorull knocked and received a sharp tongue in response. “If it’s anyone but Dorull and Miss Oriana Gravendeer, I don’t want to see you. And if it is you, Dorull, you’d best stop this proper nonsense and send the girl in. I’ve told you fifty times now I don’t care for that outdated and highly annoying etiquette.”
“Sorry, my la—”
“Dorull…”
“Sorry.” He opened the door and stood aside, gesturing Oriana in.
Sitting in a copper tub, feet up and hair down, was Farris Torbinen. Steam swirled.
“Oh,” Oriana said, averting her eyes. “I didn’t realize—”
“Bah. We’re both women here. Pull up a chair and come over.”
Oriana couldn’t help but smile at Farris’s lackadaisical demeanor; it was the exact sort of personality she would have ruled with if the crown had been passed to her instead of Olyssi.
She sat beside Farris’s tub, feeling the warmth of the water radiating through the copper and across her legs.
“I’m so sorry about your father,” Farris said, reaching a hand out and touching Oriana, dripping water down her smock. “No child should see their father die, much less in the manner you did.”
She means it, Oriana thought. She could tell by the softness of Farris’s old, pruned face and the gentleness of her voice that she truly felt sorry for her. “Thank you. Had there not been other distractions, it might have broken me.”
“And might those distractions be the reason you’re here? Hand me that soap, will you?”
Oriana gave her the purple block of soap, and Farris scrubbed her arms with it, wafting lavender throughout the room.
“How did you know?” Oriana said, smirking.
Farris chuckled. She submerged the soap and rubbed it gently over her breasts. “I try to prepare myself for the unexpected every day; keeps an old girl like me on my toes. But being told the daughter of Raegon Gravendeer was here—and thankfully, the good daughter—surprised even me. Why your father ever made Olyssi his heiress, I’ll never know.”
“He didn’t. She forged the will.” Oriana expected a small reaction from Farris but received none.
“That crossed my mind. But my words carry a lot of weight, and I’m not eager to spark a war with Haeglin. Gods know I already am close to one with Bastion. Or so he keeps telling me.”
The box screeched, drawing Farris’s eyes toward it.
“You’re probably wondering what’s in here,” Oriana said.
“I am now.”
Oriana loosened the latches holding the lid of the box in place, then removed it. She reached her hand inside and cupped it around a squirming, soft-scaled whelp. It purred and rubbed its head against her palm.
Farris sat up, slowly.
“It’s a—”
“I’m well aware of what it is.” She stood and bent forward, grabbing her towel off the stool. “Come to the bed. If I faint there, I at least won’t drown or smack my head on the floor.”
Dripping water, Farris climbed out of the tub and walked with slapping feet over to the four-poster bed. Oriana trailed her, baby dragon in her arms. It had closed its eyes and was now sleeping.
“You can touch him,” Oriana said, sitting beside the queen.
“Oh, so it’s a him, is it?”
“He has a sister, but she’s quite crabby. Teething, I think.”
Farris dried her hands. “You have more than one? Dear, I think it’s time you explain a few things.”
Oriana tenderly stroked the whelp’s head. “I’m not at all who you think I am, Farris.” She looked away, a gloomy cloud of shame hanging over her. She wasn’t sure why she felt this way. There was nothing shameful about her, but when you live in a world that persecutes and hates the very person you are, such feelings arise, however unreasonable.
“Are you a man?” Farris asked, brows furrowed. “That would surprise me.”
“A sorceress.”
After an uncomfortable bout of silence passed, Farris said, “Well, that’s better than hearing you’re a man. No offense, dear, but you would make a very ugly man.” Oriana shook her head, grinning. “On to more important matters involving sorcerers hiding under our noses and dragons popping up from the ether. How, when, why—all those questions. Answer them, please.”
After a deep breath and shush to quiet the waking and fussy whelp, Oriana divulged as much as she could remember. Under normal circumstances, or even unusual-but-not-life-or-death circumstances, she would have parried Farris’s request with one of her own.
But Farris Torbinen held all the cards, and she would not show her hand unless it was necessary. Oriana needed to make her understand and, more importantly, believe it was necessary.
So she told her about the C
onclave, that dragons had relocated to Baelous after their defeat on Avestas. She told her about the clandestine operation involving a rogue Conclave agent—she refused to name who, in respect to Catali—and the procurement of whelps and sorcerers. And then there was the bit about the Evanescence Clutch visiting her estate, and the troublesome alliance between the Conclave and the clutches. Lastly, and most dreadful of all, she revealed to Farris that the dragons had already arrived and their staging area was close by.
The queen listened to all of this without remark. Sometimes she’d push her lips out, or move her mouth to the side, but those were as extreme a response as Oriana received.
After Oriana finished, Farris stood, dropping her towel to the floor. She meandered over to a closet full of dignified dresses and skirts and kirtles. Oriana noticed that Farris had aged remarkably well. She was seventy-two, and although her jowls sagged and she had a round liver spot on her cheek and one on her neck, she moved around youthfully.
It was said that she had not tasted a drop of ale or wine in all her life and that every day she would jog three miles through the city. None of this was true, mind you. She regularly indulged in honey mead, although always at night and in the lonesomeness of her chambers. And jogging? No. Farris Torbinen did not jog. She much preferred walking, and slowly at that, thank you very much.
Her vitality at seventy-two could be explained simply: some people age like wine, others like dung under a hot sun in the cusp of summer.
“I like you,” Farris said, plucking a dress of brocade fabric from her closet. She searched for a few more articles, yanking them aside in a haphazard fashion. “Do you know why?”
“No, to be honest. I would hate someone if they came and told me the world would end. I’d rather it just happen.”
Farris laughed. She opened a drawer, took out a rope of blue gems. “You remind me of me. And I’ve always liked me, so I like you too. Changing the world’s a noble cause. I wanted the same. I think all of us do, deep down. Even that jaded, heartless knob Bastion Rook. How did you plan to change the world?” She turned to face Oriana, tying the gems around her neck.
“With my—”
“Your dragons. Yes, yes, but how. Did you intend to wage war?”
The whelp kicked and growled. Oriana held it closer to her body for warmth. “If necessary, yes.”
“You must be careful using hard power.” She began meticulously dressing herself in loose-fitting garments, each piece a different color and often a different material: silks and cottons and linens, blues and golds and reds.
“Soft power,” Farris explained, “is almost always preferable and more effective, if slower, at achieving your goals. You would be better off using your dragons to negotiate alliances, pitting friends against one another, warring by proxy—situations that allow you to directly influence events without having your hand in the much-maligned cookie jar.”
“It’s a nice afterthought. I’m not in the position to change much right now, though. I just hope to survive.”
“No,” Farris admitted, “not yet you aren’t.” She jiggled her body to free the wrinkles of her dress. “But always think a step ahead, ten if you can manage.” She smiled and made her way over to the bed, slippers in hand. “You come to me at a dire time. Not dire for only you, but for this entire world. I cannot refuse your request for aid; doing so would doom Torbinen.
“But, if we survive this, I must plan for what will come. That plan includes you.” She hovered over the whelp and touched the tip of her pinky to its ear. “Lend me your dragons and your sorcery, and together let us forever change Avestas.”
“Yes,” Oriana said without a second thought. “Of course. But I want to see this change while I live, not give birth to its manifestation a hundred years from now.”
Farris patted her knee. “The more hard power you acquire, the greater the soft power you can exert. Do you know why Bastion Rook has yet to make good on his promise to crumble my walls?”
Oriana had wondered that. For many years, in fact. And she’d come to this conclusion: “He’s five hundred miles away, with the Crags between him.”
“Yes, that is one reason. But he could circle around Haeglin. Or cross the Low Rise of the Crags and sail for my shore. Both would take time, but he has the numbers and logistical prowess to do so.”
“And the other reason?”
Farris smiled. “He knows the Roost would fall before he ever got here. Torbinen commands the ports, from tip to tip of the Blue Coast and around the edge of the Plundered Sea. Every trading post you come across—from here to Valios and beyond—I have either built or, through favors, have enough clout to dictate routes with a stroke of my pen.” She leaned in close to Oriana, tongue wiggling out of her mouth. “I can cease almost all of the Roost’s imports and exports, and their coffers will bleed.”
“It sounds like you already have plenty of power to exert,” Oriana said.
Farris sat beside her. “Not enough to change things, dear. These are only retaliatory options. If I were to preemptively seal the Roost from all trade, Bastion would call in his debts, and he has many. No doubt he would rally all his bannermen, and a fair share of sympathizers who would worry I’d come for their good kingdoms next. Likely your sister would even join him, and Plorgus.”
Oriana chewed on her knuckle as she chewed on the suggestions and implications and the whirlwind of what-ifs and could-bes Farris threw at her.
“Forgive me, dear,” Farris said, wrapping a hand around her shoulder and pulling her in close. “I shouldn’t have. Best to save this sort of talk for after we save the world, no?” She winked. “I will assemble my Council, and we will make formal declarations to mobilize our levies. How long do you think before the clutches launch their assault?”
“Not long,” Oriana said. “Once they’re organized and ready…”
“I understand. My generals will draw up a strategy; I assume you have one as well?” Oriana nodded. “Then you’ll sit in the meeting. You may stay in my chambers; I’ll send for you when it begins.”
“I would like my own general to be there.”
If Rol knew she’d referred to him as her general, his head would have probably grown so large his bones would have shattered from trying to carry the weight. But sellsword doesn’t convey the same sense of importance.
“I can be back within the hour,” Oriana said. She noticed the slight tilt of Farris’s head and clarified that she possibly might have maybe flown here on the wings of a dragon and with a teensy-weensy bit of illusionary sorcery concealing her.
Farris clicked her tongue to the beat of tsk-tsk-tsk. “You were right, Oriana. You were not at all who I thought you were.” She smiled and added, “Now, go, and hurry back. Ideally before the apocalypse comes.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
He felt Lavery’s head fall against his shoulder for the seventh time in as many minutes. Inevitably, the boy would pick it up, startled, then settle into a brief stupor before a hoof sinking into the pockmarked earth would wake him again.
Yesterday, he’d made a mistake. But Lavery hadn’t seemed to notice. That was fortunate.
They’d stopped off at a recluse farm, only a cottage and a feeding silo on the property. He’d unfolded empty bags that had held bread and root vegetables and dried strips of meat from their journey from Haeglin. They’d eaten the last of the food a day prior.
He’d ripped carrots from the soil, potatoes too. But before he could so much as stuff them in the bags, Lavery had deemed his actions immoral. He’d insisted they talk to the farmer first, ask him for aid.
So he’d entertained the boy and knocked on the rickety door. When the rawboned, black-gummed farmer had asked their names, he’d said Gynoth at precisely the same time Lavery had announced his name. The boy hadn’t flinched. Never paled. There was no sidelong glance or hard swallow. He either hadn’t heard or hadn’t realized.
The boy read books, that much was clear. He couldn’t shut up about history
, mythical sorceries and legendary sorcerers. And if he had read the right books, he would have come across passages mentioning Gynoth—none of them flattering the necromancer, that much was certain.
Lavery wouldn’t pose a risk himself, at least nothing Gynoth couldn’t handle. But if he realized he was traveling with a necromancer who had lied to him, he might have refused his company. And then what? Gynoth couldn’t drag him along; he’d likely vanish into the past, perhaps forever, rendering both of their futures nonexistent. He couldn’t kill him and bring him back; the Keeper would have his head, quite literally.
No, he had to keep the boy believing, trusting. Or, at the very least, keep him teetering on the line that separates suspicion and outright repudiation of his claims.
In truth, he admired Lavery. No matter the circumstance, the boy always kept to his moral compass. He was a child, sure, but even children stray from instilled values and beliefs. Not Lavery, though. He respected that.
He wondered if the boy would remain as steadfast as a grown man, but sadly for him, a grown man he would never become.
Elaya rubbed warmth back into her bare arms. The nights were getting colder. Flakes of snow spewed out from the black sky occasionally, dressing the brown grass in white flecks. She had walked the entire camp and was now making her way back. Every so many tents she’d stop, poke her head in and ask if anyone was too cold, if they were getting enough to eat, if they’d any unattended wounds.
Her army seemed in good spirits. Even sitting in tents on the cold ground, they were probably treated to better conditions than in their previous lives.
Their lack of training continued to needle her. She thought about tasking the Eyes with holding classes. Basic movements, nothing strenuous or complex. But training a thousand novices? It was a logistical nightmare for which she had no good solution. Twenty mercenaries couldn’t train a thousand slaves in a month, let alone seven days.
That’s what she had given Baern: seven days. Either Lavery would arrive in that allotted time, or she’d march on Silderine. It was day six.
The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1) Page 33
