Death of the Immortal King

by Sarah McCarthy

The time passed quickly; her mind was filled with thoughts of what she and Lilianna would do, what their new life would be like.

  When she arrived, back and feet aching, no one in Kulem gave her a second look, the dusty traveler from the sticks with her pack of possessions to sell. The central square was crowded with merchants shouting out their wares; she found a woman who wasn’t currently occupied at the edge of the square and approached.

  “Numenos bless,” Coralie said, bowing her head.

  The woman turned, giving her a distracted look. Her hair was frizzy and there were dark circles under her eyes. “Can I help you?”

  “I’ve goods to sell, are you looking?”

  “Let’s see what you have.” The woman glanced over her shoulder, towards a side street, then back at Coralie.

  Coralie pulled out the various pieces of clothing and the rings, all her previous attempts. The woman picked through the clothes, bored, but showed some interest in the rings. “These aren’t very well-made.”

  Coralie knew she was just angling for a better deal, but she still blushed. “They’re good silver, though. It’s the purest quality.”

  The woman glanced over her shoulder again, her face tight. “I’ll give you five silvers for the lot.”

  “The metal alone is worth six.”

  The woman shrugged. “Five.”

  “I could get at least a silver each for the rings. I’d rather sell everything at once, though. Twelve silvers and it’s yours. You’ll be able to sell it all for at least twice that.”

  The woman snorted in contempt. “Not as many customers with the raids now. You think you can get that much, go for it. I’ll give you five.”

  “All right, thanks for your time.” Coralie began to gather up her items.

  The woman coughed. “Eh, I’m feeling generous, though. Six.”

  Coralie continued packing. “I won’t take less than ten.”

  “Eight.”

  “Thank you, but I won’t take less than ten.”

  The woman’s shoulders were tense and hunched. “All right, fine. Ten.”

  Coralie smiled. “Great.”

  The woman looked over her shoulder again, and this time her whole body went rigid. She turned back and her hands were shaking. Coralie folded up the clothes and began putting the rings back into a leather bag one at a time.

  “Let me do that.” The woman jerked the bag out of her hands, crammed the rings inside, and stuffed it under the counter. “I have to go.” She began shoving her wares into compartments of her cart, ducking her head and glancing through the crowd anxiously.

  Coralie looked where the woman was looking, and saw a man scanning the crowd. “Here, let me help you,” she said. The woman said nothing as Coralie helped her hastily pack up the cart.

  “I’ll give you your money around the corner,” the woman hissed, picking up the handles of her cart and pushing it through the crowd into an alleyway. Coralie followed, trying to look nonchalant. What was this woman running from? They darted forward, then turned down a side street. The woman stopped and dug through her coin purse.

  “Here.” She shoved the coins into Coralie’s hands and started off.

  “Are you OK?” Coralie asked.

  “I’m fine,” the woman snapped.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I don’t need help from a skint like you.”

  Coralie recoiled, but stopped herself.

  “Are you in trouble?” she asked. Her grandmother took in houseguests from time to time. Anyone that was in trouble had a place in their home, she always said. “I live a few miles from here. In Harfoss. You can stay with my grandmother and I.”

  “I’m fine,” the woman snarled, pushing her cart away. “Leave me alone.”

  Coralie let her go. She watched her push the cart away, then looked down at the money in her hands. Ten coins, but one of them was larger than the others. A twelve. The woman had accidentally given her a twelve instead of one of the single silvers. Twenty-one silvers. That was enough to pay for passage to Kreiss and rooms at an inn and food for quite a while. It was safety for their travels. But Coralie had been raised better.

  The woman had turned a corner, but Coralie could hear the wheels of the cart rumbling over the cobblestones. She hurried towards the sound.

  “Excuse me?”

  The woman whirled to face her. “I told you to leave me alone.”

  Coralie held out the twelve. “You gave me the wrong coin.”

  The woman stared at her, then at the coin in her hand. She took it angrily and started pushing her cart off.

  “Hey,” Coralie said. “I need the last silver.”

  “Consider it a tax for my putting up with you,” the woman tossed over her shoulder.

  Coralie followed her. “Give me my last silver and I’ll stop bothering you. We had an agreement.”

  “Yeah, well. Things change.”

  “I really need that money,” Coralie said softly.

  “No one who needs money gives away twelve silvers.”

  Coralie was still following her down the uneven street. “You were distracted. You didn’t mean to give me that money. I’m not going to just take it.”

  The woman dropped the handles of her cart, grabbed Coralie by the shoulders, and shoved her against the dirty wall. “Leave me alone. You hear me? You’re not getting anything else out of me.” Her face was inches from Coralie’s. Her hot breath smelled like onions. The woman shoved her again and Coralie fell sideways. This time when the woman picked up her cart handles and pushed it away, Coralie let her go.

  She dusted herself off, checked that she wasn’t injured, then sighed, adjusting her pack. She should have just kept the twelve and not bothered her.

  For the first three miles of the eight-mile hike back to Harfoss, Coralie kicked at rocks in the path. Slowly the tension drained out of her, though. At least she’d tried to do the right thing. The woman must be in a terrible situation. And Coralie had nine silvers. That would be enough.

  16

  Lilianna

  Lilianna went to look for Coralie the next morning, but she wasn’t at home or at the forge, which was unusual. Lilianna knew what this meant. It meant Coralie had a plan and was already out getting things done. She wandered back to her father’s house and stood outside, thinking. She couldn’t let Coralie do it all. She had to find some way to contribute.

  She stared at the remains of the little garden, kicking at a large white bone. Maybe if they found a place of their own in Kreiss she could try gardening then. There was no point in growing things here.

  Lilianna wandered down to the waterfront and found a bit of deserted, rocky beach. She crouched down, placing a hand on the surface of the icy water and feeling the waves lift and drop under her palm. She would find some way to be useful. She looked at the ring, wiped a grain of sand off its smooth surface.

  A few feet up the beach was a tangled pile of trash: discarded fishing lines, nets choked with barnacles and rotting seaweed, and bits of fish skeleton all stuck together. Gingerly, she picked the mess apart, collecting some thick fishing line.

  The water was perfectly clear but choked with seaweed. Dark shapes glided through the depths. She just had to figure out how to get them.

  She found a large, rusted metal fishhook and tied it to the end of the line. Then she tossed it out into the water. Nothing happened, which she should have expected. Why would the fish want to bite that? She pulled it back in, hoping she might snag something as she did, but she only caught a tangled mess of seaweed and scared the fish away; their dark shapes slipped away through the weeds, moving farther up and out.

  She needed something to bait the hook with. Apparently, it was impossible to get food if you didn’t already have food. She combed the beach for anything a fish might like to eat. She tried a dried salmon eyeball, a clump of seaweed, a bit of dead squirrel, and a large beetle, but nothing worked. She tried making a net with the discarded tangles of line, but the fish kept shooting
out of the holes in it. She made the holes smaller, but the fish fled at the sight of her shadow. She tried a different angle, waiting patiently for minutes on end, barefoot in the freezing water, her skirts tucked up into her undergarments, for the fish to come back before sweeping her net at them.

  She got close a few times, but after three hours of trying she gave up. She was too hungry to think straight anymore. She threw her net away in frustration and plopped down on the beach to rub the sand from her feet before putting her boots back on. The sole was peeling off one, and the laces were frayed to almost nothing. They needed fixing. Another thing she didn’t know how to do.

  She walked slowly home again, drank water out of the rain barrel to fill her stomach, and went inside to search the bare shelves yet again. But she stopped short upon entering because there were two people sitting in the only two chairs, both of them facing her.

  17

  Lilianna

  Lilianna froze in the doorway, staring at the two men. One of them was her father, but she hadn’t seen him upright in weeks and she barely recognized him. His eyes were bleary, and the skin sagged off his face; his cheeks were two large red pouches, and in his eyes burned a dull, hopeless anger. He said nothing, barely glanced at her when she came in, as all his attention was focused on the stranger.

  The young man who sat across from her father looked as if he’d never been in such miserable surroundings, but there was no disdain on his face. He somehow made the dirt floor and soot-stained walls more reasonable, less offensive, just by being there. His black leather belt matched his shining leather boots, and he wore a grey wool tunic with brown stitching that must have cost more money than Lilianna had touched in her entire life. Hopefully the piss-smell of the house covered up her smell of rotting fish and squirrel. She’d never thought she’d be in a situation where she’d be grateful for how this house smelled. Maybe her father had some sort of strategy with that. She’d never have accused her father of doing anything on purpose, though.

  “If I may introduce myself, sir?” His voice was soft and at the end of his words there was the faintest wheezing rattle from his chest.

  Her father cleared his throat. “Forgive me, lordship. This is my daughter, Lilianna. Lilianna, this is Aron de… de Tamley.”

  Aron stood and gave a short bow. Lilianna got the distinct impression she was supposed to do something, but she had no idea what, so she only crossed her arms and stared the stranger down. He smiled and looked down, but almost immediately his eyes flicked curiously back up to hers.

  “Do you have the money with you, then?” her father asked, cutting through the moment.

  Aron darted a surprised glance at her father, then looked apologetically at Lilianna. He took a breath, and again there was that slight wheeze catching the air in his throat.

  “Forgive me for the suddenness of my appearance,” he said, meeting her eyes. “As your father said, I am Aron de Tamley, of Tamloch.”

  Lilianna tried not to let the surprise show in her face.

  “I have come to ask you to be my wife.”

  There was no way Lilianna could keep the shock out of her face this time.

  “What? Why?” She looked around at the disgusting room, and then at the man standing in front of her. “How do you even know who I am?”

  Aron clasped his hands in front of him and looked down. “A—a priestess told me I would find my wife here. She told me—” he glanced at Lilianna’s father, “certain details about you.”

  Only a madman or a fool would let a priestess send them to a run-down village in the middle of nowhere to find a completely useless wife with no money and no connections. His family couldn’t possibly want him to go through with this. More likely this was a lie. But for someone as rich as he seemed to be, wouldn’t it be easier just to kidnap girls like her? Why propose marriage and offer her father money for her? Maybe it was part of what he liked.

  “Don’t go talking his head off, girl,” her father said. “I’ve already agreed.”

  Lilianna’s chest heated, and she clenched her fists, making a move for the door. “Yeah, well I haven’t.”

  Useless or not, she wasn’t going to be yet another thing her father sold off for drink.

  “Forgive my rudeness,” Aron said softly. “This is of course a request for you.”

  Lilianna stared at him. She thought of Coralie and their plan to run away to Kreiss. She had to get away and suddenly, oh-so-conveniently, here was another way out. A way out that didn’t involve putting Coralie in danger. But also a way that meant not being with Coralie, and she couldn’t imagine that.

  She examined Aron more closely. Smooth skin, polite expression, thoughtful eyes. If he wasn’t too insane it might not be a bad way out. Even if he was insane, he looked like someone she could handle. She knew how to get her way with people. Well, men. She needed more time, though. Needed to know exactly how crazy he was. As long as it was less than ‘lock her in a dungeon’ crazy, it might work.

  “I need time to get to know you, first,” Lilianna said.

  Aron bowed his head. “Of course, I understand.”

  If he was crazy, he was good at acting as if he wasn’t. Except for the showing up and proposing marriage thing.

  “If you’re spending time with my daughter, I want some up front,” her father interjected.

  “Of course,” Aron said. He reached into the leather purse hanging from his belt and handed her father two thin silver coins. Her father snatched them up, swaying slightly as he held them to his face, examining them closely.

  “May I take you to breakfast in the morning?” Aron asked her.

  “Um… sure.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning, then.” He inclined his head to her father, bowed deeply to her, and left.

  Lilianna stood, bemused, watching him go. Her father shuffled past her, following Aron through the door, and made his way down the street, off to drink his money. Lilianna, still reeling, mostly from surprise and partially from hunger, collapsed into her pile of dirty blankets and thought.

  Aron had tucked his elbow through hers, but Lilianna felt like an idiot parading down the central street in her tattered dress with this nobleman guiding her as if she was a delicate flower, so she gently untangled herself. He didn’t take it poorly, just continued on, taking in the sights of the falling-apart village as if it were some great metropolis.

  “And here’s my boat,” Aron said, smiling and pointing towards a large sailing vessel docked in the harbor. It dwarfed the pathetic dinghies around it. Two servants stood on deck, well-dressed and at the ready. “I thought we’d eat on deck.”

  Lilianna stopped short. “Oh no. I’m not getting on your boat with you.”

  He turned and examined her. “Is the dock better?”

  Maybe safer, but also public. Also, she wanted to see how much he would accommodate her. “Let’s eat in the forest.”

  “The forest?” He lifted his eyebrows.

  “The wildflowers are blooming.”

  “Oh. All right then. I’ll have my men bring the table.”

  Lilianna and Aron paraded back up through town, this time followed by one servant carrying a table on his back and another loaded down with a large hamper. Unfortunately, this wasn’t any less public than eating on the dock would have been. Heads were thrust out of windows, watching them pass, and by the time they reached the far side of town a small crowd of children was following them.

  They found a place in the woods where the ground was close to even, and the servants set up the table—complete with green and white silk tablecloths—and withdrew.

  Lilianna picked at a scone and a piece of fruit and stared at Aron, who watched her, amused.

  “You know,” he commented, “even if you order me around, you still don’t know how I’d be if you married me.”

  That was true, but she wasn’t going to acknowledge it. “What’s Tamloch like?” she asked instead.

  “Impressive. Huge stone castles. Garde
ns. Have you been there?”

  “No.” She’d never been anywhere. Not even to the neighboring market towns. She had nothing to sell and no money to buy anything with. She cast around for more questions to ask him. What did you ask someone to determine if they were going to keep you in a dungeon after they married you? “Do you have brothers and sisters?” That probably wasn’t it.

  He swallowed a bite of scone and looked down, buttering another piece. “No.”

  So, he would inherit everything. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  He swallowed again. “They do not.”

  “Don’t they have someone lined up for you to marry?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I make my own decisions.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. Nobles didn’t make their own decisions. At least not in this. “So, if I agree to marry you, what then? We go back to Tamloch?”

  He cleared his throat. “Eventually.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I want to travel first.”

  “And you want a wife for that?” she asked, incredulous.

  “No.” He looked into her eyes. “I want you.”

  There was a certainty in his tone that pulled at a very broken part of her, despite how crazy it was. But still, it was crazy. “You don’t even know me.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Do you do this a lot?”

  “Do what?”

  “Propose to random girls.”

  “I’ve never proposed to anyone.”

  “But this is how you do things?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just…” Lilianna glanced around at the sunlight sifting through the trees. “Get advice from priestesses and jump into things?”

  He smiled. “Only when the priestesses are right.”

  She leaned forward, locking eyes with him. “And if, say, another priestess tells you to kill me?”

  “Marry me, and you’ll be my only priestess.”

  She rolled her eyes and sat back. He grinned.