by Max Irons
They started to move, keeping the step pattern, but the dancers swayed cautiously, almost solemnly, as the song continued. Was it his imagination, or had the torches in the hall dimmed as well? Lonni’s hand tightened on his arm.
“Did he hurt you?” whispered Galeron. It seemed wrong somehow to speak any louder. The entire hall felt muted, as though nothing but he, Lonni, and the music existed.
“No,” she breathed, looking down. Peppermint, again. She always smelled of faint peppermint. “He wanted to know about me, where I’d come from.”
His mind churned. There was more, more to discern, but when Lonni raised her gaze to meet his, the gossamer strands of thought he’d been weaving flitted away. Torchlight flickered in the dark centers of her eyes. His heartbeat quickened. A bone-deep pang spread through his veins from the center of his chest. Her muscles rippled beneath his hand as they circled the floor.
The music crescendoed into a mournful rush. Lonni gave his lead hand a squeeze and drew closer still. She made it hard to keep his steps, but, moving this slowly, it didn’t seem to matter. Galeron felt his head tip forward. Lonni’s lips trembled. His breathing came in a shallow, hiccupping gasp as warm puffs caressed his cheek.
The dancers around them slid to a stop, and so did they. Their foreheads rested against each other, noses brushing. Lonni closed her eyes, and a deep longing flooded Galeron’s body. For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to press his lips against hers, to squeeze her close to him. She tilted her chin slightly.
He could kiss her. She wanted him to do it, but the heavy image of Melia sank in his heart. The last woman he held like this perished because of him. How could he condemn her to that fate? Kissing Lonni would mark her. She would not die for him.
The last, thrumming note of the song faded into the hall. The torches resumed their normal brilliance, and the nobles burst into applause.
Galeron’s shoulders sagged, and he backed away from Lonni. The moment had passed, though the ache in his chest remained bitter and tender. His fingers slid from her grasp, her head sank, and she opened her eyes, swallowing forcefully. Both of them stared at the floor for a moment. What should he say?
“Galeron.”
He turned at the sound of his name. Iven and Julia approached, Iven looking a bit apprehensive.
“Figure it’s about time we leave,” Iven said. “The war stories are starting next.”
Galeron nodded. Recanting old horrors was the last thing he wanted on a night like this.
“You all right?” asked Iven.
“We’re fine,” Lonni said, though her voice came out slightly stiff.
They headed out of the Hall of the Fallen and to Iven’s waiting carriage, leaving the nobles and lost chances behind them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lonni said nothing on the return journey. Iven dropped Julia off at the Valerian mansion, and they headed back to the Porter house in strained silence. Galeron didn’t look at Lonni or Iven, his mind still whirling with the events of the ball. How had Kolvein known he was an informer? It didn’t seem possible, but his knowledge matched Lady Atalan’s warning. He had ways of learning secrets.
But how? It doesn’t make any sense. Galeron stole a glance at Lonni. She studied her fingers intently. Had she let something slip? Something that might have tipped Kolvein to their true purpose? Possible, even, that she gave up an innocuous fact about herself or him. It wouldn’t have seemed like anything important, but, with Kolvein’s intellect, he’d discerned the meaning behind them.
When the carriage arrived back at Iven’s house, Lonni jumped out first and strode briskly through the doors, not casting a look to Galeron or Iven.
Iven pulled off his hat and scratched his head. “What’s gotten into her?”
Galeron glowered at him. Talking about it was the last thing he wanted. “No idea.”
“Right,” Iven said as they walked inside. “Not a clue. The grand observer Galeron Triste will happily solve a murder, but discern the feelings of a woman? No, too much for him, that is.”
“Drop it,” Galeron grunted. Why couldn’t Iven just leave well enough alone? His limbs ached, and his bed sang a siren’s call.
“Fine.” Iven rolled his shoulders. “What happened tonight?”
“I said—”
“I’m not talking about her,” he said. “What are you doing next?”
Galeron swallowed, throat stinging. He really needed a drink. “Do you know where the royal crypt is?”
Iven glanced at a few passing servants in the atrium and ushered Galeron upstairs. He guided him down one of the other hallways and into the lord’s private chambers. Finely woven maroon rugs covered the stone floor, and a fire crackled in the hearth across from a massive four-poster bed. Iven shut the door behind them, locked it, and cocked his head to one of the armchairs by the fireplace.
“Have a seat,” he said. “I’m getting out of this finery.”
Galeron sat down in the squashy seat, sagging into the cushioned material. So nice to be off his feet. Iven rustled around behind him.
“Why do you want to go to the crypt?” he asked.
Galeron related the information he’d gathered over the course of the evening. “Something’s not right,” he said at the end.
“No one doubted that,” Iven said, his voice muffled. “Ah, that’s better.” He sat in the chair opposite Galeron, dressed in a simple tan tunic and trousers. “Breaking into the princess’s tomb, though. Is it worth it?”
Galeron nodded. “Kolvein didn’t want Carys’s body on display. I need to know why.”
Iven drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Fair enough, but what if it wasn’t his idea?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“With King Balen’s fit tonight, maybe Queen Tulia’s covering up his delusions by casting some of the blame on Kolvein,” said Iven. “It’s the sort of thing she’d do, and it looks a little better in the eyes of the nobles.”
“Has the king been stricken with these…fits often?”
Iven frowned. “That’s a sticky subject. Gossip says he hasn’t been right since coming back from the war, but who is? However, Lady Valerian mentioned that, of late, King Balen’s been hitting the drink so hard, some are starting to call him Balen the Foggy.”
Galeron snorted.
“But don’t go saying that too much,” Iven said, wincing. “You know how royalty lacks a sense of humor.”
Too true. Galeron stared into the fire for a long while. “It might be nothing, but it’s the only idea I’ve got. Arlana seemed to think it was a wise course of action.”
“Hmm,” Iven said. “Does that really say a lot for it?”
“She leads Broton’s informers,” Galeron said. “That has to count for something.”
Iven gave a noncommittal grunt.
“Do you have a better idea?” asked Galeron.
“Ah, no,” Iven said. “Point for your side. What do you hope to find?”
“Couldn’t say for certain.” Galeron rubbed his drooping eyes. “I suppose we’ll know it when we see it. There’s no alternative. Julia’s story cleared Lord Pendegrast from suspicion.”
“How?” he asked.
“Fletcher’s firelock was his own,” Galeron said. “Whoever killed Carys did so under his nose.”
Iven yawned. “If you want to visit the royal crypt, we should go tonight. Everyone’s still occupied at the ball, and, when they get done, they won’t be in any position to think clearly.”
Galeron groaned. Was there never time for sleep?
Iven waved a hand at him. “One benefit of nobility is I’ve got access to coffee.” He grabbed a kettle from his nightstand and hung it over the fire. “Give it a few minutes, and we’ll have some nicely brewed Azizi coffee to get us through the night.”
A half smile spread over Galeron’s mouth. Coffee would do the trick. His eyelids already lifted in anticipation.
“Is the crypt guarded?” he asked.
Galeron frowned. “How are we going to get in?”
“There’s only one way in or out of the royal burial grounds,” Iven said. “Two guards are always on watch at the entrance.”
“Typical.” He rubbed his forehead. “Any spots where we could take them by surprise?”
Iven shook his head. “They’re stationed against the face of the mausoleum. Any effort to take them down they’d see.”
Two guards. Galeron’s brow furrowed. They might be able to overpower them, but he and Iven would expose themselves. At best, they could silence them, but the guards would report the incident once they woke up. At worst, he and Iven would have to kill them, which would eventually raise a disturbance in Keenan Caffar. They needed a third. Someone to distract the guards so he and Iven could choke them out without being seen.
“We need Lonni,” Galeron said after a while.
Iven nodded. “Whatever’s going on between you two better be sorted in a hurry.”
“She distracts the guards, pulls them away from the mausoleum, and we can choke them from behind,” Galeron said.
“Simple, quick, and effective,” Iven said. “I like it. Go apologize for whatever slight offered.”
Galeron closed his eyes for a moment. Easy to say, but hard to do. Kolvein’s threats still tumbled about in his head. Was it worth getting her involved? There wasn’t much choice in the matter. He and Iven needed the help.
Galeron opened his eyes, strode out of Iven’s chambers, and crossed the corridors to Lonni’s door. He paused in front of the blank brown wood. What should he say?
He scowled. He was thinking too hard on this, again. There was no reason he shouldn’t be able to talk with her. They had a job that needed doing, and time slipped away from him.
Galeron rapped his knuckles on the wooden surface. Footsteps padded close, and the door opened. Lonni, her hair unbound, barefoot, and clad in her simple gray riding dress, peered out at him. Her eyes hardened, and her mouth tightened.
“Yes?” she asked.
Galeron’s stomach gave an involuntary lurch. This was going well. “We need your help.”
“And what might that be?”
“I need to get into the royal crypt, and it requires more than two people to get the job done,” Galeron said. “Will you come?”
“Galeron Triste, it’s the middle of the night,” Lonni said. “Why can’t this wait until morning?”
“Cracking open a tomb isn’t the sort of thing you do in daylight,” he said.
Lonni gave a long, sharp exhale. “Sleep means nothing to you, does it? Think of someone besides yourself for a change.”
Galeron’s muscles tightened. Did she think he liked going without rest? He wanted nothing more than to lose himself in the blackness of sleep, but there wasn’t time.
“If you’ve got your braids all tangled over tonight, I’m sorry,” he said. “Nothing happened.”
She scowled at him. “You’re exactly right. Nothing happened.” With that, she slammed the door in his face.
He groaned. That had gone well. Galeron turned to leave. How were they going to get past the guards now?
The door creaked open again. “I need to collect some things,” Lonni said. “Don’t leave without me.”
Women!
#
Galeron felt better with his sword hanging by his side as he, Lonni, and Iven walked up the road to the burial ground entrance. It lay to the left of the bend in the lane, burrowing deep into the rock. The smoothly chiseled tunnel, wide enough for three to walk abreast, drove toward the heart of the mountain, torches crackling in brackets at intervals and giving the insides a hazy appearance.
The coffee kept exhaustion at bay, but it wouldn’t last forever. Galeron’s limbs still ached, but his mind no longer swam through mud from one thought to the next. He watched Lonni walking in front of him. She’d said nothing since they left the Porter house, even with his and Iven’s continuous chatter over what they could do to attract the guards’ attention.
“An explosion,” Iven said.
“With what?” asked Galeron. “We don’t have any night dust.”
“We could say…” His voice trailed off. “I don’t know. It seemed a lot easier when we first thought of it.”
That was usually the way ideas worked. Everything seemed simpler when a man didn’t have to do it just then.
“How frightened are Rayans of the dead?” Lonni asked suddenly.
Iven frowned. “Why?”
“There are other tombs and crypts outside the royal one, right?” she asked.
“True enough,” Iven said.
“What if I went into one and started screaming that the tombs had been opened? Would that be enough to pull them away?”
Iven scratched his head, and Galeron chewed on the inside of his mouth. It might work. That was actually not a bad idea, really.
A wide smile split Iven’s face. “Brilliance. It’s still Fallen Ones’ Day, the dead of night, and a crypt isn’t exactly cheery. I think you’ll make their blood curdle.”
“It’s good to know someone appreciates me,” Lonni said.
Iven’s face blanched, and he leaned in to whisper in Galeron’s ear, “What did you do?”
Galeron scowled at him. “Nothing.”
“That.” Iven gestured toward Lonni’s back. “That is not nothing.”
His insides writhed and twisted into knots. “I…I might have almost kissed her.”
Iven raised an eyebrow. “Might have almost? Pretty vague, even for you.”
“It was during the last dance,” he said. “Really slow. Kolvein had just grabbed her. She was trying to calm me down, and then the music…”
Iven nodded sagely. “Blasted ballads. Play on your heartstrings. You both need time. ‘Torwin’s Gulch’ is a really sad piece, and one of those musicians was a mage bonded to his instrument.”
Galeron frowned. “They can do that?”
“You remember what that teacher from Azura said. You can bond with anything.” Iven shrugged. “Orpheus is obsessed with music. He hung himself with his own lyre strings to make that connection. The better he plays, the more powerful the song.”
“What we’re both feeling is just…”
“Aftereffects, I imagine,” Iven said. “Probably not different from a headache after a night of drinking, but…” He glanced at the ceiling. “Don’t just assume that. Magic doesn’t break reality, only bend it.” He poked Galeron’s chest. “For it to work, there had to be an inkling of something to grow.”
Galeron looked at Lonni, and then at Iven. “No. You heard what Kolvein did to Melia. I won’t put her in danger like that.”
“How is this any different?” asked Iven. “She’s going to the crypt.”
“There’s no other option.”
Iven shook his head. “Lonni’s stronger than you think. Shouldn’t this be her choice?”
Galeron said nothing. That would be the sensible thing, but if the choice came to hurting Lonni’s feelings or losing her life, he’d prefer her alive and wounded to dead and content.
They spoke no more of it, and the tunnel ended a few feet ahead of them. Galeron and Iven pulled up short, but Lonni went on ahead and turned to her left, walking out of view. They waited for a moment, letting her footsteps fade away, and then crept to the edge of the tunnel exit.
A large domed cave carved from the mountain’s innards swelled out before them, the main room lit by dozens of burning braziers around the perimeter. In neatly set rank and file, stone coffins lined the floor, a carved effigy upon the lid of each. Entrances to separate chambers lay on the side walls, three to the left and three to the right. Lonni headed for the middle left.
Straight ahead of them rose an imposing building, its height stretching to the stone ceiling. Shining white columns of marble
framed the outside, supporting a grand, triangular roof. Embedded inside stretched the relief of a great scaly drake, its mouth somehow burning with real fire. Large bronze braziers at the foot of each column cast dark, flickering shadows on the armored figures of two soldiers standing at the top of the stairs, helmets adorned with silver wings.
“Ceremonial helms,” Iven said, squinting. “Might as well be wearing a bucket. No neck protection.”
Galeron nodded. Legionaries in combat would’ve had neck plates, making strangling them impossible. He checked Lonni’s progress. She’d made it to the middle door and walked right through, no challenge from the guards.
“Almost too easy,” Galeron whispered.
“No,” Iven said. “Anyone can visit one of the noble houses’ crypts, but only royalty can visit the royal graves.”
“Rayans have strange customs.”
“We don’t even know why that’s a rule,” Iven said. “Lost to history.”
Lonni’s scream reverberated through the crypt, beating against Galeron’s ears and actually driving him to the ground. He looked to the rows of tombs, half expecting the occupants to burst free and seek out the shrieks disturbing their sleep.
“She’s got lungs,” Iven said.
“I hadn’t noticed,” Galeron grunted.
The guards at the royal crypt jogged down the steps and rushed toward the source of the noise. Galeron and Iven burst from the mouth of the tunnel, hunched over and scurrying between the rows of coffins. The hairs on the back of Galeron’s neck stood on end as Lonni continued her screams, and he shuddered violently. He and Iven came up behind the guards as they entered the side crypt.
“Young lady, young lady, calm yourself,” yelled one of the guards, a hand outstretched.
Galeron slowed his pace and held out a hand, motioning for Iven to do the same. The guards still stood a good distance away. Lonni’s shrieks began to fade away, replaced by hiccupping cries.
