A King's Bargain

by J. D. L. Rosell

  Tal laughed softly. "The question you and everyone else wants answered, myself included. I've said it once, and Silence knows I'll say it again — I'm not a wise man, and I'm very often the fool."

  "Well, what's done is done. All we can do is complete your task before they find themselves in trouble." Falcon leaned onto the rampart. "I believe we should start with those closest to the matter. Aelyn Cloudtouched — how can we be sure he's not the traitor, or perhaps the Extinguished in disguise?"

  For a moment, Tal held back the truth. But if I can't trust my oldest friend, who can I? "He's many things, but the Extinguished isn't one of them. For one, he arrived at the castle after these events began. It was one of the reasons Aldric trusted him to fetch me. For another, he would have raised Night's Pyres if the Extinguished had tried taking him."

  "And if the Soulstealer ambushed him on the road?"

  "It's possible, but I doubt it. I tricked Aelyn into donning a Binding Ring he meant to put on me and bound him not to harm Garin or me. But that night in the courtyard, the ghoul glyphs were reinforced through a sacrifice. It couldn't have been Aelyn doing it — he still wears the Binding Ring, and I would know if he'd violated its magic."

  Falcon waved a hand. "Very well. Though I would have liked it to be that damnable elf. Then what of Kaleras? Does he remain as impervious as his name?"

  Tal tensed, then forced himself to relax. "Also unlikely. He's worn the Ring of Thalkuun ever since he stole it from me two decades ago."

  The bard pushed away from the wall and sighed. "Well, at least the wizards are on our side. But it doesn't get us any closer."

  "No. And we've searched down the other avenues to no end. The Deliese girl's ravings were odd, but they lead nowhere. The bungling of the supply lines seemed more a clerical error than an act of sabotage. And Jonn is still missing." Tal looked at Falcon askance. "You truly don't remember anything out of the ordinary that night?"

  The Court Bard's expression grew drawn, and he shook his head. "If only I could."

  Tal sighed. "Then all our leads have dried up. But I always suspected most of these threads were too tangential for the Soulstealer to be behind them. No, if one of the Extinguished is here, he'll have wormed his way into the heart of Avendor."

  The bard raised an eyebrow. "The King?"

  "Perhaps. Or his councilors. One way or another, we'll find out soon."

  "Will we?"

  "Our favorite elven mage claims to be close to cracking the pendant we took from the Ruins of Erlodan. If he can do what he claims, Aelyn will soon be able to find the fox hiding among the fold."

  Falcon's eyes gleamed gold in the morning light as he smiled. "Then we'll have ourselves a song."

  Tal raised an eyebrow. "I'd settle for a dead devil."

  "It has to be him," Wren whispered as they waited in the eaves of the set.

  Garin kept his eyes on the scene playing out on stage before them. It was the climax of Kingmakers and Queenslayers, and they'd been rehearsing it that day for the better part of an hour. All he had to do was run in, deliver a message, and run off, but it still set him to sweating as he stood in the wings. The performance was in two days, and every hour of rehearsal felt as if he were bent over the block and waiting for the axe to fall.

  That one of Yuldor's greatest servants lurked among them, plotting Silence only knew what, did nothing to ease his mind.

  "Maybe," he muttered.

  "That's it? Maybe? He told you to warn Tal not to trust anyone. I've read, watched, and listened to more stories than I can count, Garin — that line is nearly verbatim from a dozen different plays, and the villain always says it."

  Trust no one, the Warlock of Canturith had told him to warn Tal. But Garin hadn't. After all, if Tal was to trust no one, that included Garin. And if he started distrusting him, it might not take his mentor long to discover Garin's secret.

  "My cue's coming up," he mumbled.

  Wren ignored him as usual. "We have to scout it out. Meet me here at midnight. Then we can go see what that warlock's up to."

  "I said—" an imperious voice called with a tinge of annoyance from on stage "—that whoever is knocking may come in!"

  With a jolt, Garin realized that was his cue. "Fine," he said hastily to Wren, then scrambled forward, pageboy's tight pants pulling with every step.

  When the Sorrowful Lady had long passed by his window and out of sight, Garin crept down the corridors to the Smallstage. Bearing in mind Tal's sporadic instruction in stealth, he wore no shoes, and the stone pressed cold through his stockings, numbing them soon after he'd left his room. He stared wide-eyed into the darkness, expecting at every corner to see black eyes set in pale, peeling flesh over a gnashing mouth. But no ghouls walked the halls, and somehow, he managed to avoid the orange glow of the guards, any noise he made masked by their conversations.

  Entering the Smallstage, he found the glow of a candle already awaiting him in the opposite corner. Hesitantly, he approached, hoping it wasn't some other actor out for a late-night rehearsal; or, worse still, Wren's father.

  His breath caught as Wren turned the corner, gold dancing in her eyes, features looking even more elfin than before with the shadows playing across her face.

  "I was starting to think you'd chickened out," she teased as she stepped up next to him. He was distinctly aware of how close she stood by him and imagined he could feel the heat of her body.

  "Easy for you to say," he whispered back. "All you had to do was walk outside your room, not cross half the castle."

  "Oh, I don't think my courage is in question. It's not me who's on his ass more often than not in the training yard."

  Garin grinned. No point in denying what was true. But as he remembered the task awaiting them, the smile slipped away. "If we're going to do this, we'd best do it soon."

  Wren took his hand. "Don't worry," she said softly, the candle's flame reflected in her eyes. "I'll protect you."

  He swallowed, a lump suddenly forming in his throat, and hoped she wouldn't notice how his palms had gone clammy. "How could I be afraid now?" he joked weakly.

  Wren blew out the candle and hid it, then they crept through the castle toward the eastern wing. She kept hold of his hand, even intertwining their fingers as they went on. Where the darkness had before held horrors, now it brought different imaginings: secret thoughts of finding a dark corner, her lips finding his, her warmth pressed against him…

  He tried to banish the thoughts, heart beating fast, wondering how she couldn't hear them jangling in his head.

  But at each corner, Wren pulled him forward, and soon the amorous dreams were replaced by fears again. Would they actually sneak into the old warlock's tower? He still didn't know how far Wren would push this. They'd speculated about traps around the door, and from the look he'd given Garin, it seemed more than likely they were in place. Those eyes had pierced right through him, appearing to see the secret shame that Garin kept hidden even from himself as much as he could. A man with eyes like that didn't seem like a man to trust a locked door.

  At the final corridor, he pulled her to a stop and whispered, "Are you sure about this?"

  Wren's eyes glimmered in the near-complete darkness as she turned back toward him. "Of course not. But if he's a Soulstealer and no one realizes, shouldn't we find out?"

  "Tal will figure it out. He's a living legend, isn't he? And he probably has figured him out, one way or another — we saw him leave his tower."

  "You don't know that," she said, her voice rising a bit. "But if we get proof, then we can show everyone the truth. Can you imagine their faces when we figure it out before them?"

  A game. It was all a game to her, a way to show up her father. For all the stories she'd heard and their daily contests in the training yard, she'd never been in real danger. She didn't realize how quickly she could go from being alive to very much not.

  "Wren," he started to say, then yelped and fell back as light flared from the archway.

  W
ren snarled and spun, a knife held before her as she fell into a crouch facing the figure. Garin, to his shame, had instead sprawled across the floor. As his eyes adjusted, he recognized the old man standing before him, a white ball of light dancing on his fingertips.

  Kaleras' lips curled in a sneer, not seeming the least bothered by Wren's bared knife. "Tal's boy," he noted. "And the bard's girl." His gaze traveled over them, his sneer growing more pronounced with each moment. "Put that knife away and stand up."

  Wren glanced back at Garin, eyes narrowed, and he nodded to her as he rose to his feet. Do as he says, he urged her silently. No doubt the knife would fail to penetrate whatever spells the warlock had about him.

  When they stood before him, Kaleras studied them for a long minute, looking back and forth between their faces. "You think you're safe here, don't you?" he said in a low voice. "You think that because you're swaddled away in the castle, no harm could ever befall you. You're young and arrogant and feel a fire to prove yourself. And what's more daring than sneaking into the tower of the famed Warlock of Canturith?"

  Wren's teeth were bared in nearly a snarl, but Garin had gone statue-still. He wasn't sure if he should read into the thinly veiled threats in every word, but he couldn't unhear them.

  Kaleras leaned closer, close enough to smell his breath, bitter with some spice that Garin couldn't identify. "But you're not safe here. No one is. And the next time you wander the castle at night, you might find yourselves suffering more than a scolding."

  Protect yourself. Kill him.

  The warlock's gaze slid over to him, and Garin swallowed, trying to pretend he hadn't heard the strange voice in his head. Please, he prayed to the Whispering Gods. Please, let us go free.

  Kaleras' eyes narrowed, but he backed up a step and gestured sharply down the hall. "Don't let me catch you out again," he snapped. "Especially not in the eastern wing!"

  Wren seized Garin's hand and pulled him toward the corridor. They didn't bother waiting until they were out of sight to start running.

  When they reached the Smallstage, Wren pulled him to the corner where she'd been waiting and then onto a pile of drapings. He fell like a ragdoll and lay there, heart pounding. What did he mean? he thought desperately. And why did that voice, that voice that sounded both strange and so damn familiar, want me to kill Kaleras?

  Then Wren rolled over, her body pressing down on top of him, and her lips clumsily found his.

  Shocked, he lay there, frozen, for half a second — then all thoughts of what had come before fled his mind. His hands found her body, and his lips moved against hers. Was this how kissing was supposed to go? He didn't know, but he could tell she didn't either, and it didn't matter. Her hands ran up his sides, grasping at him, her mouth sucking eagerly at his lip—

  A light blazed in his eyes.

  Garin scrambled away from Wren and to his feet, standing awkwardly as his trousers pulled uncomfortably. Wren was up nearly as fast as he was, but she appeared unperturbed as she brushed a stray hair back from her face. His heart almost stopped as, for the second time that night, he saw who had caught them.

  For once, Falcon Sunstring wasn't smiling. The Court Bard looked between each of them, the gold in his eyes spinning like water sloshing in a bucket, faster and faster.

  His gaze settled on his daughter. "I wondered where you'd gone when I didn't find you in bed," the court bard said in too even a tone. "So I thought I'd come and check if you were out here."

  "Well, you found me." Wren's cheeks were flushed, Garin saw in the light of the lamp Falcon carried, but she seemed cool and self-possessed as she stared down her father.

  "Garin." Falcon looked at him now, and Garin swallowed. "I think you'd best return to your bed. And stay there."

  Garin scrambled to obey, only sneaking one last glance back at Wren, heart soaring to see a small smile on her lips. Even the Court Bard's stare after him couldn't dampen his mood as he fled from the Smallstage.

  From the Shadows

  Though their practice didn't begin until an hour after dawn, Garin found himself waiting in the courtyard as first light stole over the battlements, watching the door to the courtyard.

  He'd barely slept a wink, and not only from Kaleras' threats circling his head. Wren's kiss — it had been messy and warm and like nothing he'd ever imagined. And now all of his imagination was taken up with how it might happen again. He felt like he had in the Smallstage backroom that afternoon Wren and he had stolen away, the World spinning around him, the warmth of wine and anticipation flowing through his body and mind.

  But it wasn't Wren who entered the courtyard first, but the Master-at-Arms. "Garin," he said gruffly. "What're you doing up before the sun?"

  Garin had been relieved when the Master had taken to calling him by his name rather than just "boy." "Good morn, Master Krador." Garin gave him a warrior's bow, sword-hand clenched in a fist over his chest, the other clasped behind his back. "Just couldn't wait to get started."

  Master-at-Arms grunted. "That's good," he said with plain skepticism.

  The stout half-dwarf began to turn away, then paused. "Been meaning to tell you. You've done well this past month. Progressed a lot more than anyone else, and you're a fair bit better than most of them. Except for Wren, of course."

  Garin grinned, remembering her lips on his. "I wouldn't dream of out-sparring her. Thank you, Master."

  Master Krador grunted again and turned away.

  "That couldn't have been me you were just talking about."

  Garin spun, and there she stood. Wren was dressed in her usual pair of tunic and trousers, her hair in its typical messy disarray — but somehow, everything about her seemed different. Her green-gold eyes; her short, springy black hair; her lips curled into a smile or a sneer, he hardly cared which — each detail was filled with such thrill, such mystery, that he couldn't draw in a proper breath.

  Wren cocked her head to the side, eyes narrowed. "Are you going to say anything?"

  Only then did he realize how long he'd been staring. "Uh, yes. I mean, no—" He cut off with a sheepish grin.

  She snorted and turned away. "Come on. If we're both early, we may as well get some practice in."

  His head in a fog, he followed her to the practice weapons rack that the Master-at-Arms had hauled out, then back out to the yard, after which she proceeded to whack him into submission again and again. She'd been holding back before, and now that she wasn't, he knew he didn't stand a chance. Maybe Master Krador had been happy with his progression, but Garin was seeing just how far he still had to go. More startling still was how his feelings were shifting, from dazed and awestruck to sulky and bruised.

  "Let me up!" he finally roared when she'd already collapsed his leg, but continued to prod and poke at him.

  Wren stepped away, utterly in control, a smile curling her lips. "Finally had enough?"

  The other students had long ago arrived, and many paused in their matches to stare. Even so, Garin dropped his sword and stalked forward until he stood barely a foot apart from her.

  "What's gotten into you?" he asked in a low voice. "It's like you forgot about—"

  She took a step back. "I didn't forget about anything," she said in a normal voice so that all could hear. "Pick up your blade!"

  Hell's devils, you didn't, he thought bitterly. He turned and stalked back to his sword, picked it up, and whirled to meet the attack he knew she'd spring.

  Two bruising hours later, when Master Krador called the practice to a finish, Garin deposited his borrowed items and followed the other students off of the courtyard without looking back for Wren. But no sooner had he entered through the shadowed archway did he feel a hand on his arm. Wren's hand — he turned and met her gaze, and all his earlier annoyance disappeared. Her aggression had been replaced something else mesmerizing and strange.

  "Meet me again," she murmured. "Tonight at midnight. At the entrance to the Smallstage."

  Then, just like that, she was gone, stepping pa
st him and around the corner ahead.

  Garin stared, gut twisting, head dizzy, body bruised, wondering what in all the East's evils he'd gotten himself mixed up in, and why he craved her all the more for it.

  Tal entered quietly into the Smallstage and stood by the doorway, watching the scene unfold on the set opposite him.

  "Away! Away, you spawn of fiends!" the man playing the king roared. "Away, and never again tempt me with the lust of war!"

  The evil advisor, dressed in cream and purple motley, slunk back behind the throne.

  The king cocked his head as if hearing something. "Who knocks at my door? Come in at once!"

  A pageboy — or a youth too tall to play a pageboy, but forced into the role anyway — ran in, a letter clutched in hand. "News, My Liege! News from the North!"

  The king, who had collapsed in his throne, wearily held out his hand. "Give it here, boy. I'll open it myself."

  Tal smiled as Garin handed the letter to the king, bowed, then practically ran off stage again. A small part, to be sure, but for all his height, he'd played it perfectly. Falcon had lamented of the boy's ability, but he was sure Garin could fit any role if he set his heart and mind to it.

  Wandering around the edge of the room, he flashed Falcon a wink when he glanced over from his seat in front of the stage, then slipped behind the set.

  Garin stood near Wren, though they appeared to be ignoring each other. He frowned, wondering what might be between them, but approached them all the same.

  "Well done, lad," he said in a low voice so as not to disturb the ongoing rehearsal. "You play the page well."

  "Just a small part," the youth muttered, not meeting his eyes, while Wren smirked behind his back.

  Tal raised an eyebrow at her, then squeezed his shoulder. "We all start small. Besides, it's the practice that's important, not the part. One day, you may find your training here saves your life."