Skerren held a quill in one hand and a silver measuring stick in the other. He shifted aside to reveal a map on a small table. Beside it lay an open book that held an account going back centuries, charting the lodestones’ movement in their crystal spheres.
“A bell ago,” Skerren explained, “another signal stirred our instrument.”
Wryth shoved closer. “From where? From the Bay of Promise?”
He pictured the bronze woman stalking along the seabed after the crash of the wyndship from Guld’guhl.
Skerren slid the map over, inscribed with numbers and arrows. “No, not from the sea. It was brief but appeared to rise out of the northeast. I still want to review my calculations to be sure.”
“How far to the northeast?”
“I gauge no farther than the forests of Cloudreach, somewhere near The Twins.”
Wryth frowned.
Cloudreach again. Where the others had fled.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. Standing in the center of the bronze web, he felt the movement of unseen forces, bringing all the pieces of a grand game together.
Wryth swung around, hoping it wasn’t too late.
“Where are you going?” Skerren asked.
He pointed back to the talisman. “Keep watching. Send word if anything changes.”
“And what of you?”
“I’m headed to the warships. To join the prince and the legions. If that artifact is out there, I must not lose it again.”
* * *
MIKAEN SEARCHED HIS rooms at the Legionary for his boots. After soaking in a hot bath and scrubbing his body to a fine polish, he felt like himself, a shining prince of the realm. His diligence with soap and brush had less to do with removing the grime of his hard ride across the Brau?lands and everything to do with ridding himself of the stench of the Shrivenkeep’s brimstan.
He stood dressed in his underleathers, like his father had been, readying for the flight to Havensfayre. He would don his armor once they moored at the forest town. He had already strapped on his sword with its silver-filigreed scabbard, along with a dagger in a matching sheath. Over his leathers, he also wore a doublet of silver with a sun-and-crown crest stitched into it. He had to maintain some decorum as the prince.
But where are my sarding boots?
He didn’t want to run barefooted to the war docks.
He checked under his bed, spotted them, and yanked them out. Before he could pull them on, a firm knock on the door interrupted him. From the loudness of the rap, he sensed he had best not ignore such a demanding summons. Despite being the prince, he remained an eighthyear at the Legionary, and his high standing only afforded him so much leeway here—which at most times was none at all.
He dropped his boots, swore, and crossed to the door. He pulled it open to discover a crimson mountain at his threshold. Anskar vy Donn wore light armor, as if he had been born into it and never removed it. He carried his helm under one arm.
“Prince Mikaen, I wish a word with you before we depart.”
Without asking permission, Anskar pushed inside. He shoved past Mikaen and slammed the door behind him.
“What’s this concerning?” Mikaen asked, trying to sound firm and princely, which was hard to pull off when bootless.
“I want you to beseech the king on your brother’s behalf.”
“On Kanthe’s behalf?”
Anskar lifted a brow. “You have another brother I’m not aware of?”
Mikaen felt his cheeks warm. He glanced over to the box still resting on his desk, holding the bit of pottery of two boys locked in an embrace, the betrothal gift from his twin.
Had Kanthe been plotting against the realm even back then?
“I don’t understand,” Mikaen said. “You know the betrayal that Kanthe has committed. As much as I love him, treachery against the crown, conspiring with insurrectionists, it cannot go unanswered.”
“But I don’t think your brother’s flight was an act of insurrection—it was more one of survival.”
Mikaen frowned deeply, trying to mimic his father’s stern demeanor. “What do you mean?”
“Just this past bell, I learned of a plot to assassinate Kanthe in the swamps. Upon the order of Highmount. To be carried out by men under my command.”
Mikaen stumbled back. He found his bed with the backs of his legs and sat down heavily. “Surely you must be mistaken.”
Anskar followed him and dropped to a knee to let Mikaen read his earnestness. “I believe it was that assassination attempt that sent your brother fleeing. I come to you now, to help sway your father from this bloody path.”
“I don’t think I can. While my father holds me in a favorable light, the same cannot be said of Kanthe.”
“I understand, but during this past sojourn, I saw a worthiness in your brother. A steel long hidden behind drink and carousing. But it is there. I believe this deeply. With war threatening, two princes flanking the king will serve the realm well.”
Mikaen sighed, weighing what to do.
Anskar hung his head, clearly struggling with words that would convince him to appeal to the king. The vy-knight lifted his face to try again.
Mikaen already had his dagger out and slashed the Vyrllian’s throat.
The man fell back on his rear, his face stunned. Ironhard hands clutched at his neck, but they were not strong enough to stop the blood spurting between his fingers. He gurgled more of his life past his lips.
Mikaen looked down at the crimson spray across his own doublet and underleathers. He would have to change again. As he stood, Anskar looked up at him, still in shock—not at the attack but at the realization.
“Yes, I ordered my brother to be killed in the swamps. My father could never commit such an act. He has too generous a heart.” He tugged his soiled doublet over his head. “In a king, such a charity of spirit might be a boon in times of peace, but it’s a detriment with war now threatening.”
He undid the hooks on his upper leathers. “Look at what such kindness has wrought my father. A second son who threatens chaos. Whether Kanthe does so willingly or unwittingly, it does not matter. Then there’s the bastard daughter who should have been slain as soon as her mother’s belly first began to swell. Even the mercy of my father’s friendship with the knight Graylin now invites more broken oaths to the detriment of our kingdom.”
Anskar gurgled his dissent as he slumped to the stone floor.
“From here on out, I will be the death of such mercies.” Mikaen remembered his earlier promise to his father. “I will be the lightning to my father’s thunder. I will strike where death needs to be dealt. I will spare the king the necessity of cold ruthlessness. That is the son I shall be to my father.”
As Mikaen struggled out of his uppers, he recognized he was soliloquizing to a dead man. He stepped around the pool of blood as another hard knocking sounded from the door.
He closed his eyes with a groan and considered his options when a voice shouted from outside, “Prince Mikaen, it’s Haddan. I come with Shrive Wryth, who brings urgent word from the Shrivenkeep.”
Ah …
He crossed and opened the door. “Then it seems we all have urgent matters to attend to before we depart.” He stepped aside to reveal the body on the floor. “Anskar caught wind of what we planned for my brother.”