A Heart of Blood and Ashes

by Milla Vane

  The moan also drew Kelir’s gaze to the bed and a frown to the warrior’s face. “Dawn approaches.”

  And the moon would set as the sun rose. Maddek knew well. “It does.”

  “Go to your bride. I will finish this for you.”

  “I have vowed to bring her his head.”

  “So you will, even if you are not the one to remove it from his neck. I will deliver his head to you in a ribbon-wrapped box and you will place it at her feet.”

  Then kiss his way up her legs before fully claiming her. So badly Maddek wanted that. For her brother’s head was not the only promise he’d made.

  He’d also promised to see to her pleasure, so deep inside her. Long and hard, until she came for him again and again.

  Yet of the promises he’d made, it was the last Maddek feared most—to not believe anything from Bazir’s poisoned tongue.

  For Maddek had truly underestimated her brother. Yvenne had accused him of denying her a sword and shield by not allowing her to speak, yet her silence had been Maddek’s own shield. Family cut deeper, and the rage he’d known simply listening to Bazir’s lies about Yvenne and his parents had been enough. If she had spoken more about his mother, and Bazir had twisted those words again . . . Maddek knew not if the sly-tongued dog would have found a weakness in him.

  As it was, he already struggled with doubt. Not in the claims that she was a demon—but from words as yet unspoken. Because Yvenne had stopped them with her knife. But even unspoken, Bazir’s intention had been clear. He meant to accuse Yvenne of killing their mother.

  And that accusation had found weakness in Maddek. It had wriggled into him as a worm through a crack. He did not believe it—he would not believe it—yet his mind returned to it again and again.

  Though it could not be true. Everything she’d said of Queen Vyssen was evidence against it. Yvenne had loved her mother as Maddek had loved his own. But that worm still wriggled in his brain, a sly tongue wriggling behind it.

  Better that he never allowed Bazir to speak again. But that was not the plan.

  A seabird’s warble floated in from outside, joining the song of the waves—Danoh’s signal that the soldiers finally approached.

  Approached with the intention of killing his warriors and taking his bride.

  Many battles Maddek had fought. Many times he’d waited for an enemy’s advance, felt the rush through his veins when they finally appeared, his blood thundering and hot.

  Never had it been as this. For they intended to kill his warriors and take his bride. To return her to Zhalen’s prison, where she would know suffering at her father’s hands.

  This night, Maddek would defy all that the goddess had claimed. Though not yet a king, Maddek would protect her. Then he would have her.

  And he would not lose her.

  Another warble from Danoh. The soldiers had chosen the spiral entry, making their way up the curving ramp that led to the main entrance of their quarters. Rugusians were mountain men and no stranger to climbing, so Maddek had anticipated their scaling the balcony to the bedchamber. It offered the greatest surprise and allowed them the best vantage prior to attack.

  Perhaps because Bazir was no Rugusian and could not climb. By Temra’s fist, Maddek prayed that cur was with them and not waiting for a signal that the deed was accomplished.

  Swiftly Maddek abandoned the shadows for the position chosen if the attack did not come through the balcony. Kelir followed, feet silent. The soldiers would likely split their numbers after entering the nest—half seeking out the Parsathean guard to kill them, and the remainder attacking the bedchamber through the vestibule. Quick and quiet they would need to be, giving the Parsatheans no opportunity to raise an alarm or to reach for weapons and shields.

  The door between the corridor and vestibule was closed, yet the vestibule was open to the bedchamber. No sound could Maddek hear from the corridor. Southerners wore so much metal armor that always they clinked and jingled like a purse of coins. The stealth of these gave indication of experience.

  Toric’s grunting came louder, faster, creaking the bedframe. Luring the soldiers in, giving them false belief that their target was well distracted.

  Maddek slipped into the vestibule, then sprang against the wall adjacent to the closed door. His fingers caught a marble protrusion made from the carving of a shell. He hauled himself upward, using another carving to climb higher. Into the corner of the vaulted ceiling he wedged himself, hands and feet braced against the adjoining walls. Kelir took position on the other side. Here the moonlight did not reach them. Only the faintest glow spilled into the vestibule below.

  The Rugusian soldiers likely expected that any Parsatheans guarding Maddek and his bride would stand watch in this small chamber. The most danger and uncertainty the soldiers faced here, not knowing how many warriors waited beyond the closed door.

  They came as Maddek would have sent his warriors through—in a silent rush of four soldiers, swords at ready, in a sweeping burst that covered each corner of the vestibule. Finding it empty, they hurried to the bedchamber door and took new defensive positions at either side of it.

  All wore leather armor instead of metal plates. None wore helms, which would have gleamed in the moonlight. A gray-haired man looked to be captain of the others. He’d led the other three into the vestibule and now knelt by the bedchamber door, his gaze scanning that room—and was bold enough to peer past the frame of the door to check whether any Parsatheans stood against the nearest wall.

  Sly nudges passed between the other soldiers when Toric’s grunts quickened, as if nearing release. The soldiers stilled to attention again when the captain held up a fist, then splayed his fingers.

  Two more soldiers swept silently into the vestibule. Bazir boldly strode in after them, carrying a sword and wearing no armor. Instead he was dressed as if coming from the prince’s dinner, though that was long over.

  Only the top of Bazir’s head was visible, but Maddek could easily picture his enraging smirk. Confident they all must have been that no Parsathean guards waited inside the bedchamber, for the captain allowed Bazir through the door first. Sheathing his sword and arming himself with a crossbow, the captain and three other soldiers flanked him—leaving two in the vestibule to halt any Parsatheans who might come down the corridor.

  Maddek found no fault with the Rugusian captain’s strategy. Except that he had not looked up.

  Lingering by the bedchamber entrance, as if to watch the attack, the two soldiers in the vestibule had not yet taken post by the corridor door. Nor would they ever.

  As one, Maddek and Kelir sprang from their hiding places. No weapons did they draw, for they wore them. Silently Maddek landed behind the nearest soldier and with silver claws ripped out the man’s throat to the spine. Hot blood spurted over Maddek’s fingers and splashed the wall. With his opposite hand, he caught the soldier’s sword as it fell from his grip. The soldier convulsed, hands flying to his neck. If any scream he made, it emerged as a bubbling wheeze from his gaping windpipe.

  Maddek eased the thrashing body to the floor. Metal armor would have clattered against marble tiles, but the leather armor muffled the soldier’s dying throes, and what little noise remained was concealed by Toric’s heavy grunts.

  So too did his grunts conceal the next attack. Like raptors Maddek and Kelir bolted from the vestibule. The group of soldiers had crossed half the distance to the curtained bed, moving silently in a fanned formation that could better keep watch on the darkened corners of the large chamber. But it was from behind that death came for the two soldiers at either end of the fan.

  No attempt did Maddek make at silence now. So near to the others, not even Toric’s grunts could mask the tortured wheeze or the wet thunk of throatflesh that Maddek threw to the floor. No attempt did he make to stop this soldier’s sword from clanging against marble. Instead of letting the body fall to the
floor, he anchored the dying man against his chest, holding him upright with silver-clawed fingers cradling the soldier’s jaw, letting the others have a clear view of what awaited them.

  And using the body as a shield against the crossbow leveled at his heart when the captain spun around. Even in the moonlight, he saw the bloodbare tension that paled the captain’s face.

  “Abandon the sly-tongue,” Maddek told him. “I will let you flee by the balcony.”

  As he spoke, sudden silence came from the bed, leaving the bedchamber filled with the crash of waves and the heaving of breaths. Though Maddek had not expected the Rugusian to possess any honor, he was not sorry when rage and determination chased the terror from the captain’s skin. But although flushed and shaking, neither the captain nor the remaining soldier fired his crossbow at Maddek or Kelir, wasting the bolt on the corpses the Parsatheans used as shields. Instead the captain and soldier drew closer together, providing better protection for Bazir.

  In the council chambers Bazir had scrambled fearfully away from Maddek’s approach. The two guarding him would slow Maddek no more than the table had, yet no fear did he see in the sly-tongue now. Instead there was only familiar arrogance and disdain. That cur’s moonstone eyes gleamed with it—one eye partially slitted closed, swollen and bruised.

  “If you are here, who then mounts Yvenne in that bed? There is your answer to why we encountered none of his guard, Holern,” Bazir said to the captain. “The barbarians have not laid a trap for us. Instead they take turns between my sister’s—”

  A hoarse scream from deeper within the nest sounded, followed by savage growls as the remaining Rugusian soldiers found the sleeping quarters where Fassad and his wolves waited.

  Bazir’s head cocked, listening. When silence fell again he said cheerfully, “Perhaps you had it right, Holern.”

  The captain’s jaw clenched but he only told the remaining soldier to keep an eye on the bed, and his own gaze did not move away from Maddek and Kelir. Perhaps hoping for rage to overcome Maddek’s sense, too.

  That would not happen. It mattered not what Bazir said.

  “She killed our mother. Did she tell you that?” the sly-tongue asked, but the words were nothing, no more substantial than a breeze, because Maddek expected them. “How familiar it must have sounded to you—a queen tragically killed in a failed escape attempt. Is that what you told him, Yvenne?” Raising his voice, he called toward the bed. As he continued, true anger seemed to burn away his smirk. “Or did you give to him a false story, so he would not see through your schemes? Perhaps a tale where our father killed her, though his use for our mother was not done? Or perhaps you blamed Lazen or Cezan, because you have made certain they cannot defend themselves against your lies?”

  A failed escape attempt. Harder the words blew, a gale wind battering his heart, yet Maddek stood firm against them. “What use would Zhalen still have for your mother?”

  That smirk returned. “To get another daughter upon her. The sickly heir she whelped was . . . inadequate.”

  Kelir’s grin flashed through the blood painting his face like a blade through flesh. “Vela does not find her inadequate.”

  Neither did Maddek.

  Bazir gave a dismissive laugh. “You place your trust in a goddess who abandoned us to the Destroyer? Where was Vela when he killed Queen Venys, the only warrior to ever draw his blood? And when he reanimated Syssia’s beloved queen as a demon, where was the goddess then? But it was not only Syssia that Vela had forsaken. Not only the nations of this alliance. All of the western realms, she abandoned to his destruction. Yet you truly expect her to assist us now?”

  Maddek cared nothing of what the goddess did. Only what he believed Yvenne might accomplish.

  Those moonstone eyes sharpened, so shrewd and yet so unlike the cleverness of his sister’s. “If you wish to survive the Destroyer’s return, do not look to Yvenne. Join with my father and Aezil, and bow to Enam—and you and your people might have a chance.”

  By serving the Destroyer? By welcoming his rule and more of Enam’s corrupt magic?

  “I think not,” Maddek said.

  “So instead you will follow a queen who is sickly and weak? What fool would do such a thing?” Her brother laughed again, and Maddek knew the shame of having thought and said almost exactly the same. To the bed Bazir called again, “You have truly enslaved him! Perhaps you are no demon, Yvenne, but you have proved yourself more persuasive than ever I believed. First you clear a path to a husband by setting a trap for his queen and king, then you convince him to marry their murderer. Are you certain you do not wish me to take her back to Syssia?”

  The last was directed to Maddek—as it all had been, he knew. Trying to stoke his rage, to fuel his doubt.

  And enraged Maddek was. Impulsive, he was not. Neither were his warriors.

  Danoh had fought beside him far longer than she’d been part of his guard. Maddek knew the only delay had been the moonlight, as Danoh found route to the balcony where the shadow she cast would not expose her movements. The moon was low and shone directly into the bedchamber, so she would be forced to find a wide angle of approach. So wide, she was still nowhere in his sight when he heard the thwap of her bowstring.

  Vela had called her the Dragon’s sting. So she was this night, as her arrow pierced the soldier’s back, flinging him forward with the impact. A bad angle she must have had on the captain, or she misguessed the direction he would turn in response to the soldier’s cry. Her next arrow embedded into the leather armor protecting his shoulder, yet it was enough to make him stumble and lose his steady aim. With a roar, Kelir dropped his corpse shield and hurled his axe. The blade struck the captain’s chest with such force that he flew back off his feet and was dead before he landed.

  Bazir, they left for Maddek.

  Now that sly-tongued cur fell back from Maddek in desperate retreat, holding his sword out before him. This time Maddek would not underestimate him or forget Yvenne’s warning about poisoned blades. The body he still carried as shield, and as he passed the fallen captain, he swept up his crossbow.

  Bazir’s moonstone eyes widened. “You cannot—Arrrrgh!”

  With a feathered bolt jutting from his right shoulder, the cur scuttled back nearer to the balcony, switching his sword to his left hand. Little practice he seemed to have with that grip, wobbling and weak, slashing wildly. Bazir hit the corpse shield that Maddek carried once, twice, before lunging forward as if intending to run the body through and strike Maddek with the poisoned blade. Maddek shoved the corpse at him as Bazir impaled it. Overbalanced by the weight on his blade, Bazir’s grip failed. The weapon slipped from his hand and the cur stumbled.

  Maddek caught him by the throat, claws digging in. “Her only return to Syssia will be to claim her throne. Never will your brothers or your father touch her again.”

  Gasping and struggling, Bazir wheezed desperately, “She will betray you, as she did my mother and yours—”

  Stabbing his fingers between those open lips, Maddek ripped out the wriggling worm of a tongue and released him.

  Choking, blood pouring from his mouth, Bazir looked at him stunned. Ragged sounds came from his throat. Not screams. As if still trying to speak.

  Maddek yanked Bazir’s sword from the soldier’s corpse and skewered the cur’s gut with it.

  A quick death it was—quicker than it should have been, and quicker than Maddek would have liked. No doubt the blade had been poisoned. As Bazir thrashed on the floor, green foam bubbled through the blood coming from his mouth. Then abruptly he stilled, moonstone eyes glazed and unseeing.

  “It is done,” Maddek announced.

  Toric opened the curtain, revealing Vela’s consort behind him, and the other two occupants of the bed who had waited through this long night—Gareth and Cadus. Both wore grim expressions, though when the prince’s gaze took in the carnage, horror and sick
ness joined it.

  “You heard with your own ears?”

  Jaw tight, the Tolehi minister nodded. “Syssia and Rugus will betray the alliance to save their own skins.”

  “Zhalen. Not Syssia.” Nothing Maddek had seen of Yvenne’s people suggested that they supported their regent. Only feared him. He knew not if Rugus was the same, but that they would discover when Aezil was dead. Maddek yanked Kelir’s axe from the captain’s chest. “Carry that knowledge back to the council, but travel with care. If they can, Zhalen and Aezil will have you killed before you reach Ephorn.”

  “As they will also come for you.”

  “So they will.” So the race to the Burning Plains would resume.

  “All of Syssia and Rugus against seven warriors? Come with me, instead, and speak to the council. Let them also hear Nyset’s heir.”

  “I will not risk her.”

  “Two hundred soldiers will serve as escort—”

  “And do you trust that Bazir has not filled their heads with his lies on the journey here? Can you assure me that she will not be set upon by soldiers who believe her a demon? You believed it for a time.” When that silenced the minister, Maddek turned back to Bazir’s corpse. “When you remove this body, beware the poisoned blade.”

  “Green spittle,” Cadus said, carefully lifting the hem of his robes and stepping around pools of blood as he moved closer to examine it. “Silac venom?”

  “Odd choice, if it was.” That from Vela’s consort, who had remained steady through this night. “The venom will kill an opponent, but not quickly.”

  That was truth. The poison only weakened those it infected, until they fell asleep and woke a brainless beast. “Not so odd if he meant to turn the alliance against me. Weakened, I could have been defeated and he could have taken Yvenne—and after waking, I would have slaughtered everyone in the palace, with no one aware the cause was poison.”

  And no doubt Bazir would have claimed Maddek killed Yvenne in his rampage, so no one would look for her afterward.