A Court of Lies

by Kate Avery Ellison

  The queen spoke first. “There is a feast planned already that has been in preparation for a year’s time—it is a celebration day for my people, a festival of our last victory against Bestane a century ago, and the marriage ceremony will pair nicely with the rest of the festivities. After that,” she said, turning her head to look at him, “you will be a good consort. You’ll stay in your chambers except when you want to stroll the public gardens, perhaps, or when I summon you to the throne room for effect. I will continue to run my country. You are here under my gracious provision, Prince of Austrisia, but make no mistake. You are my consort, not my king. Conduct yourself accordingly.”

  Jehn said nothing. He walked with his arms crossed behind him, his face knit with a thoughtful expression. A listening expression.

  They reached the steps that led upward to a portico lined with vines, and the queen stopped. She turned to face Jehn.

  “Are you going to say your piece?”

  “My piece?” Jehn repeated innocently.

  The queen sighed. “My husband-to-be, I am not an idiot. You did not accidentally run into me in the garden this morning. In fact, I don’t think you’ve accidentally done anything in your life, Jehn of Austrisia. You encroached upon my personal garden in the hopes of catching me alone and making a request that you do not want my advisors to hear. So, make it. Because it’s about to rain, and this garden is more private than the walls of my palace, so I would like to talk here rather than inside.”

  Jehn was impressed. He did not deny what she’d surmised, for she was right. He had walked the garden this morning with the intent to run into her. He did have a request.

  She was cleverer than he had imagined.

  “One of the eastern cities of my country is under siege right now,” he said. “An army encircles the city, starving it, beating at the doors. Soon they will break inside.”

  “Isglorn, yes,” the queen said. “My spies have told me of it.”

  “Then you must know that many men and women who are loyal to me are dying,” Jehn said. “Those who can have fled, but they need somewhere to go. Cahan has decided to make an example of them. They will not be safe in Austrisia.”

  “Your nobles, of course, are welcome at my court—” the queen began.

  “Not nobility,” Jehn said softly. “Surely you know that too.”

  The queen paused. “You are seeking to relocate commoners?”

  She seemed surprised.

  Jehn gazed at her steadily without speaking.

  “Nyr,” the queen said sharply, “cannot accept Austrisian refugees. My ministers would never allow it. The political situation in Austrisia—”

  “You are queen,” Jehn said. “Make them allow it.”

  She laughed. It was a derisive sound. “Do not speak to me as if your situation is any different. Your ministers keep you on a short leash, I hear.”

  Jehn’s lips tightened. Rain began to fall, pattering on the ground between them, droplets landing in the queen’s hair and on her lashes. She looked fragile in the misty light of morning. Pale. Like painted glass.

  She didn’t move. Neither did he.

  “My people are dying,” Jehn said. “Those who have already escaped must have somewhere to go. They are boarding the last of my ships as we speak—”

  “I am sorry.” The queen turned toward the palace. “I cannot help you.”

  “They will be here within the week,” Jehn said.

  “Then they will be turned away,” the queen said sharply. “I have told you already. I cannot accept Austrisian refugees. My ministers will not allow it. My people will not allow it. Your position here is already tenuous. The people already murmur with displeasure at the foreign presence in our court. My position here is uncertain. A move like this could cause favor to turn against me.”

  Jehn’s hand shot out and closed over her wrist. She stilled. She did not look down.

  “You could save them,” he said. “Don’t be heartless.”

  The queen’s eyes cinched, eyelashes like dark scythes casting shadows across her cheekbones. “You do not have permission to touch the royal wrist,” she said sharply.

  Jehn released her immediately. “My apologies,” he said smoothly.

  The queen’s brows straightened.

  “They carry gold,” he continued quietly. “The rest of the royal coffers that were smuggled away from Tasglorn before Cahan took power. I offer it to you as a gift, in exchange for a place for them.”

  Her eyes glittered. The rain continued to fall on her hair and dress.

  “No,” she said.

  Jehn’s jaw tightened.

  “When they arrive at your shores,” he said, “you won’t dare turn them back. You wouldn’t dare turn away my people. Not if you want to perpetuate the façade that we are in love. That we are so in love that you threw all caution to the wind in marrying me. Your people won’t like it, but you’ll have to allow the Austrisians to stay.”

  The queen did not speak. Rain ran down her face like tears, but her eyes were as black as coal. She took a step back, not breaking her gaze away from his. “You think you can control me,” she said with venom in her voice. “You think you can twist me to work your purposes. You cannot.”

  “It is already done,” Jehn replied evenly.

  The queen drew back, watching him as if waiting for him to admit that he was lying, but he did not. Her face knit with anger, she turned and climbed the steps, rain soaking her dress and running in rivulets down her hair. Water dripped from her feet, which he realized were bare, making her look more like a country girl tending to chickens than a queen of the island nation.

  And then she was gone, and Jehn was alone, left with his victory, feeling oddly shaken in the wake of her fury.

  He might have thought he’d feel exhilarated in the face of his first win in the battle of wills with the queen, but his satisfaction was tainted. He felt weary, irritated, and heavy. His hand throbbed again, and the water that seeped into his clothes left him cold. The look in the queen’s eyes—that fury, mingled with a glimmer of betrayal—left an itch in him that he didn’t like.

  He had never been so bothered to best someone before.

  He steered his mind toward the fact that he’d secured a place for the Austrisian refugees. He was allowing himself to be sidetracked and confused. Perhaps the pain in his hand was making this difficult. He had won. He would be happy in that. It was not his choice that his marriage be a battlefield. It was hers.

  But he would win the war.

  The rain began to abate after a brief shower, leaving a mist behind that clung to the trees and the tall grasses, washing the world in gray. Jehn stayed still, listening to the sound of the garden as it began to wake again after the rain. Birds trilled. Tiny rivers, created from the downpour, rushed toward the pond beneath bridges built for such times. Jehn turned to leave the garden that he loved, a garden he’d known would not be availed to him again after this confrontation with the queen. Now, he must find another place to think, to walk alone and meditate upon what must be done.

  He allowed himself one last glance of the lake. It no longer looked like a woman; he stood at the wrong vantage point. But a cluster of trees gave him pause.

  What had the queen said just minutes ago?

  You have not seen all the secrets of this garden.

  She said it like one who does not anticipate such secrets ever being seen. She said it not to entice him. She said it to put him in his place.

  Jehn intended to show her differently.

  He was no mere consort to be shoved aside. He might be a step on her climb to power, but she could be refashioned as a rung in his ladder to victory as well. He would not be passive.

  He left the garden behind, passing through gates guarded by soldiers who looked at him and lowered their spears as they recognized him as the royal betrothed of the queen. He could only imagine any other person, emerging from this garden, would be swiftly intercepted and interrogated. Royal though he
was, he received glares of disapproval from even the lowliest of her personal soldiers.

  Then again, the general opinion of Nyr at the prospect of their queen marrying a foreigner was displeasure. He was a foolhardy choice, the exiled prince of a nation torn by civil war.

  Jehn stepped into a second garden, one of the general palace grounds, this one crisscrossed with green canals bordered by drooping trees with purple foliage. Pathways wound through the garden, connected between the canals by arching footbridges painted white and gold. Ahead, Jehn spotted a few Nyrian nobles strolling across one such bridge. The women were giggling at whatever the man was saying. Their sun parasols hid their faces, and they did not see him. He withdrew into a shaded alcove of vines to wait for them to pass.

  He’d rather not make stilted small talk with them, or even merely awkward bows and silent smiles, depending on their grasp of Austrish. He was still carrying on the charade that he did not speak Nyrese, and thus the nobles would have to speak to him in his language if they wanted to communicate.

  The leaves rustled after the nobles had disappeared into the palace. Jehn didn’t look as he spoke.

  “How was your journey?”

  Kael stepped from the foliage and flicked a leaf from his coat. “Satisfying.”

  Jehn smiled a little.

  Kael pulled the medallion from his pocket and held it out. “As I promised.”

  Jehn reached out to take it. His hands stopped just before he touched the metal. “I’ve always hated this medallion. It feels so… heavy.”

  He didn’t mean the weight.

  His loyal captain of the guard did not lower his hand. Jehn sighed and closed his fingers around the medallion.

  One more thing to put around his neck.

  “Have you finished preparing for your journey to Austrisia?” he asked.

  Kael’s eyes flickered. “I leave within the day, once the Monarchist soldiers I’ve arranged to serve as your guards arrive.”

  Jehn’s wane smile vanished. “I am not in need of minders, Kael. You were just gone to steal my medallion back, and I was fine without you.”

  “I’ll be gone for weeks this time,” Kael responded. “I need someone here whom I trust to ensure your safety in my absence. This isn’t a summer palace in Tyyr, Jehn. This is the cutthroat Nyrian court.”

  “I know exactly what it is,” Jehn snapped. “I’m not a nursling child.”

  “You are still in need of protection,” Kael argued. “You are vulnerable due to your recent injury.”

  Jehn looked down at his hand, still bandaged. “The queen’s guards—”

  “The queen has her own agenda,” Kael said. “Do you trust her?”

  It was a fair point, but Jehn wasn’t willing to concede it. “The queen wants me alive. She will not allow me to be killed.”

  “Frankly,” Kael said with a twitch of the muscle in his jaw, “it isn’t an assassination I’m currently concerned about.”

  Jehn was silent a beat. Birds called overhead. Wind rustled the trees.

  Kael was referring to, of course, the drug from the Nyrian doctor that Jehn preferred to use to the prescription of his Austrisian physician.

  “I haven’t—” Jehn began.

  Kael lifted an eyebrow.

  “Much,” Jehn amended.

  “It is in the queen’s interest to have you docile and incapacitated. If she could make you into her puppet, she could run the Monarchist revolution, and afterward, Austrisia.”

  “You’d never allow that, even if I were overtaken of my senses,” Jehn said irritably.

  “I am not immune to a random accident, a slip of poison, a quick knife in the dark,” Kael said quietly.

  Jehn’s eyebrows drew together. “I’d kill her myself if it happened.”

  “Just keep your wits about you, please,” Kael said. “And do as your guards say.”

  Jehn laughed, a low and startled sound. “Don’t scold me like a child. My wits are always about me.”

  “I worry,” Kael said.

  “I know.”

  Another silence. Jehn thought briefly that perhaps the captain of his guard shouldn’t chastise like a grandmother speaking to a naughty child. He immediately dismissed that thought. Just weeks ago, Kael had refused to stop calling him your grace and had acted more like a whipped but obedient hound than his oldest friend.

  He far preferred the near insubordination, even if Kael was wrong about his ability to handle the Nyrian medicine.

  “Have you contacted her?” Jehn asked. He didn’t have to clarify who he meant. They both knew he was speaking of the dragonsayer.

  A vein pulsed in Kael’s throat. He took his time responding. “No,” he said finally. “I thought it best—I should say, I would rather—well, I want to deliver the news in person. Frankly, I think she would only accept a letter from me to set it on fire at this point.”

  Jehn studied the captain of his guard, curious. Romantic love seemed to inspire a great deal of rapture and a great deal of pain, and frankly, he could not understand it. And he was glad for that. He was a crown, a means to secure Austrisia and the freedom of his people. Love complicated things. It crept into the hearts and minds of the best men and women he had and made them conflicted and hurt. He was glad he did not know its bite.

  “Don’t look at me as though I’m a stuttering fool,” Kael said with a low laugh. “I still have my wits about me, Jehn. Never fear.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “Best not to delay too long,” Jehn offered, lacking any other words of wisdom to bestow upon his friend.

  Kael nodded and slipped away, and the prince was alone in the garden.

  Always alone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A LONE HORSE galloped across the Estrian plains under a thundering morning sky, with a cloaked figure on its back. The horse, a striped Tyyrian stallion, had long, powerful legs that ate up the ground. Its mane and tail streamed in the wind that swirled across the land, bringing the scent of lightning and rain, drawing the curious gaze of the goat and cattle herders on the plain who were busy moving their stock toward shelter due to the coming storm.

  The rider did not falter when a bolt of lightning sizzled from the sky and struck the ground. The horse snorted but kept plunging down the hill, heading for the distant mountains that marked the boundary between eastern Kyreia and western Estria. The mountains formed a crooked wall, foreboding and dusted with white snow even now in the summer months.

  Those who watched the cloaked figure ride past speculated about who it might be. The horse was a fine one, so whoever rode it must be rich, or favored by someone who was. But the rider was alone. He or she must be an experienced traveler, to be riding with such confidence into the wilds of Kyreia. There was nothing that direction but rock dragons, gold miners, and wolves. Well, there had been whispers on the wind of Seekers moving through the north, searching for something. Someone, perhaps. Meanwhile, half of Cahan’s army was sweeping across the farmlands, devouring everything in sight as it crawled toward a confrontation with the Monarchist army in Estria. The other half was wrapped around the city of Isglorn like a fist. Whispers of the siege echoed all along the eastern half of Austrisia, repeated under bated breath in taverns and over wells at the center of the villages. Isglorn had grown too bold in their support of Prince Jehn, the whispers claimed. Cahan wanted to make an example to the rest of them.

  As the hoofbeats of the rider faded into the distance, the whispers of the herders turned to other things.

  There was a bandit in the north. A champion of the people, dressed in red and wielding knives and fire, calling herself the Scarlet Blade.

  The whispers passed from mouth to ear. Her exploits—saving yak herders from bandits, rescuing girls from slavers—had already been told across the northern and eastern providences. Even in the Wild Province had they begun to talk of her. Rumors claimed that she would bring gold to the poor, and food to the hungry. Some even said she would end the violence that p
lagued the people thanks to the Seekers and the armies that roamed freely and took whatever they wanted from the people.

  Some said the Scarlet Blade was kidnapped by slavers as a child, and now she was enacting her revenge upon them. Others claimed she was a prophesied daughter of a goddess, come to help the downtrodden. Others said she served the true prince.

  Nobody, however, knew her identity.

  ~

  Briand Varryda heard the footsteps of her attacker before she saw him. She dropped into a crouch, knives instantly in her hand, and so when he sprang at her, she was ready, feinting left before striking right, flipping the would-be assassin onto his back by grabbing his wrist and sweeping his feet out from under him simultaneously.

  The attacker hit the ground with an oof of pain as the air slugged from his lungs, but he was back on his feet with a twist of his body and a grunt at the effort. He was a wiry one, and his expression was determined.

  Briand took a step back as the thief took a swipe at her with his knife.

  This was the third challenger this week.

  She was growing tired of it.

  She’d been training with Nath and Crag day and night to prepare for these attacks, so she was ready. She hit the ground in a roll, ducking past his weapons before springing back to her feet. She disabled the thief with an elbow to the face and a kick to the groin. He went down with a groan. He’d been expecting someone soft and inexperienced, no doubt.

  Briand picked up his knife and stuck it in her belt, then put her fingers to her lips and whistled.

  Crag and Weasel came running. They hauled up the thief.

  “Maggot,” Weasel said sourly, taking a look at the attacker’s face.

  “What?” Briand asked. She brushed a tendril of hair from her eyes and folded her arms to disguise how shaky she felt now that the danger was past.

  “His name.” Weasel jerked his chin at the thief. “Goes by Maggot.”