War of the Bastards

by Andrew Shvarts

  That just left the four guards stationed outside the Skywhale, standing ramrod straight, spears in hand, grim expressions etched on their faces. My brain knew they couldn’t see us, but that did jack shit for my heart, which was thundering with the absolute certainty we were about to get caught. I sucked in my breath and followed the gentle pull of the invisible rope, even as it led me closer and closer to the guards, to the ramp that led right into the ship itself. Every step we took felt more doomed than the last, and then we were on the ramp itself, walking up, right between the guards, who had absolutely no idea. I wish I could have seen Zell’s face, just so that I could have shared the total absurdity of what was happening with someone else. But there was just the roar of the ship and the feel of the metal underfoot and the blank expressions of the guards, feet away, looking at me, through me, with no idea that I was actually there.

  I let out that breath once we were in the ship and not a second earlier. The ramp led to a long metal hallway, stretching all the way to the back of the Skywhale itself. It was cold inside, the walls stark and bare, the only light coming from white Luminae bulbs mounted in the ceiling. I don’t know what I expected, a nicely furnished cabin maybe, but this was all business, harsh and functional. The cannons outside weren’t an embellishment, they were the whole point. The Skywhale wasn’t some fancy galleon; it was a battleship, a weapon of war.

  None of us had any idea where to go or what to do once inside, so we just quietly shuffled forward, invisible, following the tug of Galen’s rope at the lead. We passed long benches, clearly made to fit dozens, and a handful of side rooms: a picked-over armory, a tiny canteen, narrow shafts that led to cannon platforms. All of them were empty, though. This was a troop transport, after all, and all the troops had gotten off to march into the castle, which meant the ship was pretty much ours. The only people we saw at all were in the shafts that led to the wings. There, behind iron-barred prison doors, were bulky men in brown robes, standing over wide round grates that trembled with magical energy.

  “It’s the same principle as the floating platforms in the Godsblade,” Lyriana whispered, and holy shit was it weird to suddenly hear her voice. “The manipulation of air currents to achieve flight, just on a larger scale.”

  I didn’t realize it was safe to talk, but I guess that’s what we were doing now. “Those are prisoners, aren’t they?” Zell asked. “Not bloodmages.”

  “Correct. Those are captured Hands of Servo,” Lyriana replied. “Perhaps the bloodmages haven’t mastered that Art.”

  “All the more reason to take the ship,” Galen whispered. “Come on. Let’s find our Raven.”

  That long hallway led to a door at the end, which opened up to a spiral stairway, leading both up and down. I was starting to get a feel for the ship’s layout: the middle floor we were on was the main galley, where the soldiers rode. Above us, the stairs led to an ornate wooden door that I guessed went to the captain’s quarters or the deck. So instead we went down, pushing together on that narrow staircase, which brought us to a thick metal door. The rope pulling me along stopped, and even though I couldn’t actually see Galen, I could picture him perfectly, crouched against the door, one hand on his dagger, prepared to strike.

  “Ready?” he whispered.

  I sucked in my breath and wrapped my fist around Muriel’s leather pommel. I was as ready as I could be, I guess. Which never felt like enough.

  The handle twisted, turned by Galen’s invisible hand, and the door flew open. Through it, we could make out what was very definitely a prison, a small unfurnished metal room with three heavy doors, the kind with the little barred windows at the top. A single yellow Luminae burned in the ceiling, revealing a table covered in torture tools: curved daggers, jagged hooks, iron manacles, and glass syringes.

  And standing in the middle of the room, head cocked toward us with mild confusion, was my father, Lord Kent himself, in a plain gray shirt and trousers, his hair loose around his shoulders.

  No. That was impossible. I’d seen him just a half hour ago, walking out of the Skywhale after Miles. This didn’t make sense. Something was wrong, very wrong.

  But I didn’t have time to question it, because I felt the rope on my waist tug tight and then rip off. The air in front of me shimmered and rippled like the surface of a lake, and Galen burst through it, lunging out of the radius of Lyriana’s magic, appearing out of nowhere with a dagger in each hand. My father let out a yelp of surprise, his green eyes widening, but that was all he got out, because Galen crossed the distance between them in two strides and drove a dagger up to the hilt into his chest.

  Holy shit.

  Holy holy holy shit.

  My heart thundered so hard I was sure it would burst out. My eyes stung. My breath was like a swig of whiskey, burning in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stand. After all this time…after everything…my father was…

  There was a sharp contraction of air, like the world gasping, and the Glimmer around us vanished, probably because Lyriana was too shocked to keep it up. She appeared next to me, alongside Zell and Manos, and, you know, the rest of my body. And we all just stood there, stunned, staring at Galen with his dagger in my father’s chest.

  “May the True Queen reign,” Galen hissed and jerked his dagger out. Blood blossomed like a rose in my father’s shirt, and he slumped down, wheezing, grasping toward Galen with trembling hands. As his body hit the ground, as he gasped his last breath, he shimmered as well, a sickly purple ripple like the air around him was curdling, tendrils of smoky light bending off his features as they twisted and changed.

  The man lying on the floor, the man Galen had killed, wasn’t my father. Not anymore. He was a middle-aged Westerner, a ruddy man with messy blond hair and a thin beard. He lay there, staring up at Galen with dead eyes, eyes that were a bleary, veiny blue, eyes that were very distinctly not my father’s.

  It wasn’t him. It was an impostor, a bloodmage.

  How was it possible that I still felt relief?

  Manos was the first to break the silence. “Someone want to explain what’s happening here?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand.” Lyriana hunkered down by the man, turning over his bare arms to see the purple bruises on his skin. “He’s a bloodmage, certainly. He was performing a Mesmer Art to mimic Lord Kent’s appearance.”

  “But why?” I asked. “Why would a bloodmage be impersonating my father?”

  “A double,” Zell said, fists tightening around his swords’ hilts. “To draw out assassins. This is a trap.”

  “No. Not a trap. Just bad timing,” a voice called from behind one of the barred doors. It was a man’s voice, ragged, hoarse, the kind of voice you get when you’re either sick as a dog or you’ve been screaming for hours. “You’re my rescue party, I assume?”

  “And you are?” Manos demanded.

  I swear I heard the voice sigh. “The Raven, of course.”

  We all looked at each other uneasily, none of us quite sure what to do from here. We needed more time, to think, to discuss, to try to make sense out of all this, but time was the one thing we very much didn’t have. So Galen stepped forward, sheathing one dagger, and with his free hand turned the door’s metal handle and pulled it open.

  Behind it was a tiny unlit cell, barely bigger than an outhouse, its floor and walls bare. A man sat on the floor in the middle, hands bound with manacles. He was tall and gaunt, clad only in his underclothes. Stringy hair, mostly gray, hung long and messy down to his shoulders. A thick beard framed his jaw. A big purple bruise blossomed on his cheek, the kind you got when someone punched you really hard, and his nails were cracked and bloody.

  Still. Even in this state, his eyes were the same. Sparkling green. Defiant and proud. My own eyes, staring right back at me.

  “Tillandra,” my father said.

  “You have got to be shitting me,” Manos grumbled. “Another one?”

  “It’s him,” I whispered. “For real this time.” And I
just knew, knew for sure, knew in a way I hadn’t with the impostor we’d just killed. His eyes met mine, and for one second, I swear I saw something else in them, a hint of relief, of joy, of pride. A look I hadn’t seen in years.

  Galen stormed over, jerked my father up by his collar and slammed him against the cell wall. “You’ve got ten seconds to explain what’s happening here,” he said. “What do you mean, you’re the Raven?”

  “Exactly what I said,” my father replied, totally unfazed by the impact. “For the last six months, I’ve been feeding information to the Unbroken through a network of couriers. The prison camp in the fields of Amalore? The weapons depot in Trellbein? The travel plans of the Eastern blood-mongers? All of that was me.”

  It checked out. I mean, the names and places were right. But that didn’t mean it made sense.

  “You’re saying you’ve been helping us,” Lyriana said, and her eyes were glowing hot, the air around her tense and crackling. She looked ready to kill. “You. The man who murdered my parents. The man who stole my Kingdom. You really expect us to believe you’re on our side?”

  My father’s nostrils flared, his hands tense with barely contained rage. “I made a terrible mistake appointing Lord Hampstedt to the role of Inquisitor,” he said, and I don’t think I’d ever heard him admit a mistake, ever. “I led my revolution to bring freedom to this Kingdom. But Miles and his bloodmages have turned it into a charnel house, carving a bloody trail from coast to coast, a pall of tyranny more terrible than the darkest days of the Volaris.” Which yeah, true, but holy shit, hearing it from the person we’d thought was responsible. “All Miles knows is fear and blood, power and control. I ordered him to cease the production of the serum, to rein in his bloodmages. But he defied me, first behind my back, then to my face.”

  “You’re the King,” Zell insisted. “Forget the rat Miles. Surely his men answer to you.”

  “No. Miles makes the serum. He gives them power. Without him, they’d be nothing,” my father said. “If it came to a war, they’d choose him over me, and the chaos of that battle would scorch what’s left of the Kingdom to the ground. I couldn’t challenge him directly. So I sought to undermine him instead.”

  “All the messages you sent us,” Galen said with dawning comprehension. “They were undermining the bloodmage operation.”

  My father nodded. “I’d hoped that between your attacks from within and the war with the Southlands, Miles would become vulnerable enough that I could remove him from power. But one of my messengers betrayed me, and Miles discovered what I’d been doing. His men came for me at night, slaughtered my guards, and threw me in a cell.”

  “Why not kill you?” Manos asked. “I mean, I would’ve. Still might.”

  “As far as everyone in the Kingdom is concerned, I’m still the King. The Lords of the land, especially in the West, still respect that. Without me on the throne, they’d begin scheming and conspiring, plotting a way to take the crown for themselves. Killing me would make Miles’s life much harder. So instead he keeps me in this cage and has his puppets take my face, parading from Lord to Lord, giving whatever orders he tells them to.”

  “Mesmering another person’s face requires looking right at them…” Lyriana said. “That’s why he keeps you alive.”

  “It was the perfect coup.” My father nodded. “Miles stole the Kingdom right out from under me, and no one even noticed.”

  The sheer enormity of what he was saying dawned on me, and I felt the world lurch underfoot. Because as horrible as things were out there, as terrible as the past year had been, I’d still assumed we were fighting a rational, logical enemy. My father could be ruthless and terrifying, but he was still a man driven by principle, by ideals, a man who could be reasoned with and beaten. But Miles? Emotional, impulsive Miles? The Miles who’d betrayed all his friends because I’d broken his heart, the Miles who never gave a shit about anyone but himself?

  I remembered his face back in that room in the Undercity. I remembered his anger, his resentment, his seething, childish fury. That Miles couldn’t be reasoned with. He’d burn the whole world down just to take it with him.

  After all the horrors I’d seen in the past year, few things could still frighten me. Miles in charge of the Kingdom? That did the trick.

  “Madness. Utter madness.” Manos spat to the side. “Whole world’s gone mad.”

  Zell shook his head. “World’s always been mad. It’s just catching up to you.”

  Galen had no time for their philosophizing. He actually laughed, that kind of half-crazed laugh someone does when they’re about to completely lose their shit. “If what you’re saying is true…if that weaselly coward Hampstedt really is in charge of everything, if you’re nothing but a husk for his bloodmages to copy…then there’s no reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.” He jerked a dagger up, pressing its point to my father’s throat. “After all, like you said, you dying would make his life a whole lot harder.”

  My father didn’t even flinch. “I always knew there was a good chance it would end like this. If you’re going to do it, do it quick.”

  “Wait,” I blurted out, even as Galen drew back his blade. “Don’t!”

  Galen turned back to me, slowly, hesitantly. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because…” I stammered, even as my brain struggled to find an answer. “Because…”

  “Because we can use him,” Lyriana said coldly, her eyes blazing daggers.

  Manos cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “For what?”

  When Lyriana spoke, each word was forced out, and I could tell it was taking every ounce of her willpower to be rational and measured, to not let Galen do what she so badly wanted. “We could send him out there to tell the people that Miles is a traitor. We could have him publicly denounce the bloodmages. We could use him to rally the Western Lords.”

  “I could do all of that,” my father said quietly. “And I could also help you take control of this ship.”

  Now even Galen was silent. He just stood there, breathing deep, and then lowered his dagger. “Keep talking.”

  My father’s lips twitched with the tiniest hint of a smile. “The mechanism’s simple. Bronze tubes run from the deck down to the mages in the wings. The captain gives orders into those tubes, and they comply. All we have to do is take the deck, and they’ll follow any order we give them. You just have to know the jargon. And I do.”

  “How many guards on deck?” Zell asked.

  “Ten to fifteen. No more. Mostly soldiers.”

  Manos grinned, hefting his warhammer. “Now we’re talking my language.”

  “The door at the top of the stairs goes directly to the deck. With the roaming sentry dead, there shouldn’t be anyone else in the ship, so we can make our way straight there and—”

  “Hold on a second,” I cut in. “What was that about a roaming sentry?”

  “You know. The soldier that patrols the whole ship, walking up and down all three floors to look for intruders.” My father blinked. “You did kill the roaming sentry, right?”

  Something creaked from the stairwell. We all spun around, and there he was, standing just outside our door with a stunned expression, a young Western soldier with a whistle clenched in his teeth.

  Zell moved first, hurling one of his swords. It streaked through the air like a spear and plunged right into the soldier’s chest, but it was too late; even as he fell back, he blew into the whistle, a piercing deafening shriek that rattled all through the walls of this metal monstrosity.

  “Block the door!” Galen yelled, but Lyriana was already on it. Her hands flew up, fingers clawed, Rings glowing, and she jerked them in a series of harsh chops and pulls. The door slammed shut, the handle ripped clean off, and tendrils of metal snaked around the cracks like grasping vines, sealing it shut like a rope around a chest.

  More whistles sounded from above, and then something else, a low braying horn, the kind you’d hear on a frigate, so loud it made the walls vibrate around us.
<
br />   “That’s the alarm of distress,” my father said with a weary resignation. “It’ll summon Miles and his men back to the ship. They’ll be here in minutes.”

  I looked at the sealed door, bound shut with those metal bands. “That’ll hold, right?”

  “Against soldiers? Sure. Against bloodmages? Not for long.” Lyriana’s eyes darted around the room, wide and worried. There was no other way out, no escape, no doors save the ones for the other cells. We were trapped.

  “Is there anything you can do?” I pleaded with her. “Some Art that can get us out of here or keep us safe or…or…”

  But in her eyes there was only defeat. There was a second of silence, a heavy silence as we all realized just how doomed we were. Galen breathed deep. Manos hefted his hammer. My father closed his eyes and slumped back against his cell wall. I looked to Zell, and he reached out and took my hand, squeezing it tight. I was going to die here. But at least I wasn’t going to die alone.

  Then a voice spoke, a new voice, from one of the other cell doors. “I can get us out,” it said. “But you must set me free.”

  Every head turned. It was a woman’s voice, low and husky, with an accent I couldn’t place: rolled “r”s, hard consonants, and a measured way of speaking that suggested every word was being chosen carefully. “And who’s this now?” Manos demanded.

  “No idea,” my father replied. “I didn’t even know there were other prisoners.”

  Footsteps clanked above us, the frantic pounding of men running back and forth. I could hear more on the stairs outside, the clanking of armor and metal, and the pounding of gauntlets on the sealed door. “I have magic,” the voice said. “Powerful magic. But I cannot help you from here.”

  I could see Galen gearing up to ask a question, but honestly, we didn’t have time for that. I reached over, grabbed the handle, and threw open the cell door. Inside, sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, was a young woman. She was small and thin, bony even, and I could see olive skin through the holes in her ragged nightgown. Strange tattoos covered her arms, circular knotted bands and curved runic hooks that crept from her wrists to her shoulders. Her head was hidden under a rumpled black cloth, and her hands were bound to the walls with iron chains. Which was a lot of extra restraint for a girl already shoved into a cell in the bottom of an armored ship. Whoever she was, Miles wanted her locked up tight.