Buffeted by horses, he lost sight of Roric. Lost his dagger as it was knocked out of his hand. His grand plan was in a shambles. He’d be trampled to death any moment.
And then something struck him a violent blow from behind. The last thing he heard, as darkness claimed him, was a voice saying Sorry… and the thundering of hooves.
When he came back to himself it was night, and he thought he must have been sorely injured because the ground beneath him was gently rocking, and all he could smell was wet salt. His body was an argument of many different pains. Hurting worst of all his head, pain like the blade of a sword driving through it from side to side. He moaned.
That’ll teach me to take off my skull cap.
“Hush, Willem,” Benedikt said softly. “Sound carries over water and we’re not so far from land.”
He had a fearsome thirst. Swallowing, he tried to sit up. His battling pains defeated him.
“Stay still,” said Benedikt. “That were a mighty crack to yer noggin. Ye didn’t ought to have pulled off yer cap.”
If he’d not felt so mizzled he’d have kicked his brother for that.
Having no choice, he did as he was told. Stared up into the star-pricked, lightly moon-silvered sky and listened to the gentle slap of little waves against wood. Beneath him he could feel timber boards, and smell tar.
“We’re in a boat.”
“Iss. A wherry.”
“And we’re off the Marches coast?”
“A ways along the Clemen coast by now,” said Benedikt. “I been rowing for a while.”
“Rowing.” He sat up, grunting at the pain. “Benedikt, how did we—” And then he stopped, because he realised that the leg he’d just kicked didn’t belong to his brother. Benedikt was behind him, folded into the wherry’s stern. “What the—”
“Hush!” Benedikt urged him. “Don’t fuss, Willem. It’s Roric.”
Dumbfounded, he peered at the shadowy slump in the wherry’s bow. “Roric? Shite! What’s he doing here?”
“Yes, Benedikt,” said Roric, his voice rough with weariness and pain. “What am I doing here? I confess, I’d like to know. Why didn’t you bind me and hand me over to Balfre? I’m sure the duke of Harcia would’ve been monstrous grateful. He’d have made you rich, most likely. Showered you with coin and praise. But here I am, unbound, in a thieved wherry, still alive.”
As Benedikt gaped, Liam groped around himself. “Where’s a sword? I want a fucking sword.” His scrabbling fingers closed around a cold, damp hilt. Not a sword, a dagger. But it would do. He pointed it at Roric. “Never mind flapping yer tongue, Yer Grace. Sit there and keep silent, else I’ll make yer wish ye did.”
The faint moonlight showed him Roric’s teeth as he smiled, brief and mocking. “You know who I am.”
Clemen’s bastard, pretender, murdering duke. “Iss. I know. Only seeing as how ye’ve just lost yer duchy, I don’t reckon to call ye anything but Roric.”
“So.” Roric nodded at the dagger. “You’d kill Waymon to save me, only to kill me yourself? You’re a strange young man, Willem.”
Benedikt snorted. “Ha. Ye b’aint wrong there.”
“Clap tongue,” Liam muttered, and elbowed him. “Benedikt, what happened?”
“D’ye want me to clap tongue or tell ye? I can’t do both, ye feggit.”
There was a lump the size of a goose egg on the back of his head. Gingerly exploring it with his fingertips, wincing, Liam flicked Benedikt a scowling glance. “What happened?”
“Well…” Benedikt cleared his throat, the way he did when he knew he was in trouble. “Not to spin a long yarn, Willem. When Roric went down it looked like he was done for. So while Harcia’s men and Clemen’s men were busy trying to slaughter each other, I rapped ye with a sword-hilt so it looked like ye were killed too. Then as soon as the fighting spilled out of Spindly Copse and they all rode away leaving the dead on the ground, and I saw Roric weren’t killed, I tied ye both to a horse and got us out of the Marches and over the border to Lemmet Cove, as was left deserted on account of the black-lung and the pirates. Then I stole a wherry that not a soul wanted and rowed us out of Balfre’s reach.”
Shifting until his back was against the wherry’s side, Liam stared at his brother. “You put this fucking goose egg on my head?”
Benedikt’s face was a pale blur in the miserly light. “I had to! Them Harcian men-at-arms saw you kill Waymon! Ye’d be dead for it right now if the duke–if Roric hadn’t saved ye!”
Roric folded his arms across his chest. “You were watching?”
“Iss,” Benedikt muttered. “We both were, till Willem saw Waymon had the best of ye.”
“You weren’t fighting for Balfre? You were both wearing a scarlet sash.”
“Never ye mind whose side we’re on,” Liam snapped, waggling the dagger at him. “Me and Benedikt b’aint none of yer business.”
“But you and Benedikt saved my life,” said Roric. “So I think that makes you both somewhat my business.”
Nosy bastard. Fine. When cornered, attack. Something he’d learned from Serjeant Grule. “That lord what Waymon killed. Humbert. Who was he to ye?”
“My friend,” Roric said softly, not trying to hide his grief. “My second father. I won’t speak of him. Willem, why did you and Benedikt risk your lives to save me? Aren’t your homes in the Marches? Don’t you have family there?”
“We be brothers, Roric. Our family’s dead. Murdered. It be just us now.”
“I’m sorry,” Roric said. “Truly. As it happens, I’m in the same boat. No pun intended.”
So now he was trying to make them feel sorry for him? Bastard. “Right.”
“Did you save me because you thought I might reward you with riches? If so, you’re doomed to disappointment. As you say, Willem. Clemen is lost. Balfre has won. There’s nothing but blood and death there now. At least for me. But you and Benedikt could still make a life for yourselves.”
“Weren’t ye listening? Balfre’s men know I killed Waymon. By now I reckon he wants both of us dead.”
And if that weren’t a faery-curse, he didn’t know what was.
“You could trade me for your life,” said Roric. “You’re two against one. And I’ve seen you with a sword.”
Benedikt leaned close. “We can’t risk it, Willem. Ye know Balfre loved Waymon like a brother. He’d say ye had a bargain then go back on his word and kill ye.”
And that was likely true. In his own way, Balfre was as big a bastard as Roric. What to do… what to do…
He glowered at the man who’d murdered his father. “Where can ye go, Roric? Is there any place that’ll have ye? Or do we toss ye into the water right now and wave goodbye as ye drown?”
“Yes, indeed,” Roric murmured. “A very strange young man.” Then he sighed. “Willem, in the past day I’ve lost nearly every man I ever thought of as a friend. And my people, who trusted me, are now at Balfre’s mercy. And he is not a merciful man.”
Benedikt was frowning. “Yer Grace—”
“Don’t call me that!” Roric said with violent revulsion. “There is not one speck of grace about me. There’s more grace in both of you, two ignorant boys from the Marches.”
“Roric, then,” Benedikt said awkwardly. “Be ye sure there b’ain’t someone ye can turn to?”
A dragging silence. Water sloshed against the wherry’s hull. At last, Roric stirred.
“There is someone,” he said, hesitant. “Perhaps. But she’s a long way from here. If we could get to Eaglerock harbour, find passage to Cassinia before Balfre’s fist closes tight around Clemen’s throat and from there make our way to Ardenn, then maybe—” He shook his head. “But it’s a fucking frail hope.”
“Frail be better than nothing,” said Benedikt. “Willem?”
He blinked. “Ye want us to row to Eaglerock? Benedikt, d’ye know how far that is?”
“Too far,” his brother said gloomily. Then he brightened. “We could row part of the way. Couldn’t w
e? Then leave the wherry beached somewhere and keep going on foot?”
“I s’pose,” he said, reluctant. “But—”
His brother was glaring again. “Willem, y’started this. Now y’can finish it. Or why the fuck did ye start it at all?”
He didn’t know. Fuck. He didn’t know anything. He was the rightful duke of Clemen and he didn’t know a fucking thing.
“Fine,” he muttered. “We’ll make for Eaglerock.”
Staring at the man whose life he’d just saved, who’d murdered his father and stolen his duchy, Liam picked up the wherry’s oars and started to row.
EPILOGUE
Dawn in Lepetto. Nightwings serenaded the blushing sky, greeting the new day even as they fled over countless red clay roofs to the somnolent safety of the city’s famous, fragrant lemon groves. Standing naked on the high balcony of his deceptively humble home, lips curving as a salt-scented breeze caressed his supple, olive-brown skin, Salimbene watched the familiar early flight with half-closed eyes. Obsidian feathers shone irridescent, hinting dragon-green and the azure of Lepetto’s lapping harbour, and lilting birdsong sang counterpoint with the first tollings of the great bronze bell atop the Exarch’s distant palace. A peaceful, perfect sunrise. One of thousands he’d greeted since making this city state his home. After fleeing Zeidica, and his father. Bleached bones now, a mournful skull, the man who had sired him then sought his death. His royal seed long-since blighted. His kingdom a rubble of rock and regrets. Remembering, Salimbene smiled wide. Revenge was like nectar, like honey on the tongue.
Overhead, carved jet against the blue-bowl sky, the last nightwings thrashed through the gilded air, racing to catch up with the rest of their flock. Stragglers. Weaklings. Too young or too old or merely imperfect. Wide smile became thinned lips. Thumb and forefinger pinched. One nightwing dropped stoneish to the catseye cobbles far below. Startled to silence, the remaining birds darted out of sight.
The Exarch’s bronze bell tolled on, lonely, waking marvellous, secretive Lepetto to life.
“Salimbene… Salimbene…”
Summoned, he stepped from his sunlit balcony into shadow and mystery, into the beating heart of sorcery. The balcony doors slammed shut behind him. Candlewicks ignited in the windowless room that kept his secrets. Dust stirred. Eyelids fluttered. Scabbed lips murmured his sleeping name. Here he conjured the past and the future, breathed the memory of his mother, touched with ancient fingertips the moist skin of long-dead flesh.
“Salimbene… Salimbene…”
It was the severed head connecting him to Izusa that called. The infant heads on either side of it, sitting on their little plinths, whimpered in sympathy. He snapped his fingers and the head’s sunken blue eyes sprang open.
“What news, Izusa? Do you have Liam safe?”
“Not yet. I must still cajole Catrain. She is wary of the regents, not yet entirely trusting. She—”
Fury shook him, the tempest never far from his fist. “I must have him! Liam is my wellspring. If you fail me, Izusa, I will—”
The severed head shuddered, brackish blood seeping with her fear. “I’m sorry! Forgive me!”
Her good fortune that she was far away, in storm-gathered Cassinia. He could punish her from here, but he needed his strength.
“Without him, Izusa, your life is forfeit.”
“Salimbene,” the head whispered, weeping, “I will fetch him. I won’t fail.”
So she said. But he would pinch her out like a nightwing if she lied.
Still raging, though Izusa was banished from his presence, it was some time before he was calm enough to bend his wit towards the task that started and ended each day: his search for the Oracle of Nicosia.
Find it, my love, no matter the cost his mother had begged him. Find it and destroy it. Only then will you be untouchable.
And for nearly two hundred years, he’d tried. But the Oracle, his dangerous enemy, was ever elusive. Doubtless it knew he hunted it, sought to make himself the destroyer and not the destroyed. Sometimes he despaired of keeping that promise to his mother. Sometimes he even wondered if, in her dying delirium, she had been mistaken and he stood in no danger from the Oracle, or anything at all.
But then he remembered what he’d learned long after her death. That she had been no ordinary witch, but the last great witch queen of Osfahr. And that even though he was Salimbene, he ignored her warning at his peril. So every night and every morning, he searched for the one thing in all the world that could harm him.
The bowl of blood on its carved ivory stand woke at his approach. Churned like a millpond, sensing his disquiet. He trailed his fingers across its crimson, coagulated surface, feeling the rush of power heat his bones.
“Show me,” he commanded. “Reveal the Oracle of Nicosia to my eyes!”
But again, yet again, the bowl of blood showed him nothing. He threw it stinking and scarlet across the windowless room. Cursed the Oracle. Cursed Izusa. Set the air on fire with his rage. But he was being foolish, and he knew it, so soon enough he turned the flames to ice. What matter that the Oracle continued elusive? Two hundred years. Two thousand. It was only time. And in time he would find the Oracle of Nicosia and destroy it. Then, as his mother had promised, he would be untouchable. As magnificent as the sun.
“I am Salimbene,” he whispered. “From the shadows, I rule.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My agent, Ethan Ellenberg, for his stalwart support and sage advice.
The international Orbit team, who never fail. Special thanks to Tim Holman, always, for everything. To Joanna Kramer, who didn’t know what she was getting herself into. To Abigail Nathan, for not letting me look like an idiot. And Anna Gregson, who kept me sane and believed when I doubted.
My patient and meticulous beta readers: Kate Elliott, Glenda Larke, Elaine and Peter Shipp, Mark Timmony, Craig Slater and Mary GT Webber. And Larry Murphy, for the chain-mail.
BY KAREN MILLER
Kingmaker, Kingbreaker
The Innocent Mage
The Awakened Mage
Fisherman’s Children
The Prodigal Mage
The Reluctant Mage
A Blight of Mages
Godspeaker
Empress
The Riven Kingdom
Hammer of God
The Tarnished Crown
The Falcon Throne
Rogue Agent (writing as K. E. Mills)
The Accidental Sorcerer
Witches Incorporated
Wizard Squared
Wizard Undercover
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Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
MAP
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWE
NTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BY KAREN MILLER
ORBIT NEWSLETTER
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2014 by Karen Miller
Jacket design by Kirk Benshoff
Illustration by Raphael Lacoste
Cover © 2014 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First ebook edition: September 2014
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ISBN 978-0-316-23556-3