Throne of Dragons

CHAPTER THIRTY

“I’m not sure I can do this,” Lenore said to her mother, as Queen Aethe adjusted the veil on her bridal gown. They stood in an ante-chamber outside the great hall, where her maidservants had set everything out for her before the queen had ordered them to leave.

“There, there,” her mother said. “It is no more than nerves, and Finnal has insisted to Vars that things should go ahead as quickly as possible. Remember how you felt when you first set eyes on Finnal? That same joy will soon come to you again. This has been a… hard time, for all of us.”

Did she think that Lenore didn’t know that, when she’d been the one kidnapped by King Ravin’s people? Did she think that Lenore was unaffected by the death of her brother, or her father? Her mother might be the one who knelt by the king’s recumbent form for hours each day, but that didn’t mean that Lenore hurt any less than her.

“Mother…” Lenore began, but Vars was there then, standing waiting in the spot her father should have held. He was dressed in royal robes of ermine and velvet, no crown on his head for now, but royal looking in every other respect.

“It’s time,” he said. He held out an arm for Lenore to take. “Your husband is waiting for you.”

Lenore wanted to shy away, wanted to tell him that this was all some big mistake, but there was no give in his expression, no hint that he would even listen if she said something. Rodry would have listened, or one of her sisters, or even probably Greave, if they could get his head out of a book for long enough. Not Vars though.

“It’s a pity that Greave can’t be here,” Lenore said, hoping for some delay, some postponement to what was to come.

Vars continued to hold his arm out, waiting. Lenore took the hint and rested her own gloved fingers lightly on his sleeve.

“If we were to wait for our brother to dig his head out of whatever book it’s buried in, we might still be here a year from now,” he said. “No, this wedding happens today. It will… remind the people that there is still joy to be found even in times of great sadness.”

The hesitation told Lenore that it wasn’t the real reason he was going ahead with it. Probably that had to do with the alliance between the royal house and that of Duke Viris. The firmness of Vars’s voice brooked no argument, though. Lenore had to do this.

Vars led her through into the great hall, and a fanfare pierced the air the moment they stepped inside.

This was not the packed, immensely decorated hall that it had been before, though. It was not filled with peasants free to come and go as they chose. It was not filled with joyous feasting, or even with many people.

There were a few nobles, and a few knights, and that was it. They stood there in their carefully arranged blocks, none cheering or calling out in joy, but watching in their finery, much as they might have done for an audience with the king. A priest stood up before the thrones, fat and bald and robed so that it looked a little like a tent standing there.

Finnal stood beside him, and even a few days ago, the sight of him there would have made Lenore’s heart race with joy. Now, if it raced at all, there was fear there, and the need not to be there, and the part of her that thought it could look through that façade to what lay beneath.

Lenore glanced around, looking for a way out, but there was none.

Instead, she saw her sister Erin standing next to the man who looked like a monk. That was one thing that helped to calm her. She and Erin might not always have agreed on everything, but at least Lenore knew that Erin was always there for her. Just her presence helped Lenore feel safe. Even the monk’s did, though Lenore knew now that he was not a monk, and had heard some of what he’d once been. He’d fought to save her, and that was enough.

Lenore came to stand before Finnal now, and Vars pulled back her veil, as if presenting her for his inspection. He went to stand beside the priest then, as if making it clear that it was by his will as much as any god’s that this was happening. Lenore found herself staring at Finnal, trying to find the man that she’d fallen in love with, trying to persuade herself that things were as they had been.

“We are gathered here in somber celebration,” the priest said. “These are days when we have all lost so much, but now there is a moment of joy, and joining. A moment of pure happiness.”

Lenore wished she could feel any of those things.

The priest started to read through the vows, the promises to love one another, to be faithful, to be honorable and caring. Finnal agreed to all of it so readily that for a moment Lenore almost wanted to believe him. Even so, there was something about it now that sounded more like him agreeing to the terms of a contract than to love.

The priest turned to Lenore then, asking her all of the same things. The truth was that she was too numb to listen to any of it, too numb to do more than stare out at all the faces there, hoping that one of them would interrupt this, find a way to bring it to a—

“Princess?” the priest said. “Do you wish Finnal to be your husband?”

“I… I do,” Lenore said. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Bells rang in that moment, sounding out above the city. Now, briefly, people did cheer.

There was no dancing though, and no feasting. Instead, it seemed that those there were to take it in turns approaching, speaking to Vars and Finnal, only turning to her long enough to briefly compliment how beautiful she looked.

To her surprise, Lenore saw Devin walking forward then, a sheathed sword in his hands. Her heart leapt, thinking for a second that that he had come to save her from this. Instead, he knelt, holding up the sword toward Lenore.

“Your highness,” he said. Something in his voice sounded stiff, almost stilted. “Your father and your brother had me forge this blade as a gift upon your wedding, for you to do with as you wish. I… I hope you will accept it in their honor.”

Finnal stepped past Lenore, taking the sword from Devin’s hands. He drew it, the darkness of the blade seeming almost to drink the light.

“A fine blade,” he said. He slashed it through the air once again. “I will be delighted to accept it.”

Lenore had to watch Devin backing away then, leaving the hall, the nobles, all of it.

Lenore wished for nothing more than to join him.

***

Lenore sat in the rooms that had been given to Finnal. He had assumed that they would go there, rather than to her rooms, so they had. She found herself sitting there, still in her wedding dress, while Finnal sat at a table with a ledger, hardly looking up at her as he made notes. This was hardly how she had expected her wedding night to go.

“Lord Harman’s gift of two horses will go to the country estate,” Finnal said. “They are not of the best stock, but they might be useful as an admixture in the bloodlines. We will need to send out riders to ensure that those on our new lands pay their taxes to us, rather than their old lords. Then there’s the matter of—”

“Do you even care if I’m here?” Lenore asked. She stood. “I will be returning to my rooms.”

“And have people think that we are spending our first night apart?” Finnal said, without looking up from the ledger. “I think not.”

“Look at me, damn you!” Lenore snapped.

Finnal looked up, shutting the book carefully. “You are being petulant. I have told you how our marriage will be. You will accept that.”

“I will not,” Lenore said. Before, she’d only just come back from being in the hands of King Ravin’s people. Before, she’d been too weak to say anything, but she could be strong. “I am going to my rooms. I am changing out of this stupid dress, and in the morning, I will be informing Vars that I wish this marriage annulled.”

The sword that Devin had made sang from the scabbard at Finnal’s side. He brought it to rest in the hollow of Lenore’s throat, and she froze in place.

“You are my property now, Princess,” he said menacingly, in a voice she barely recognized. “Take one step, and I shall cut your throat.”

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Greave hurried through Astare, Aurelle running to keep up in his wake. Around him, the city was a blur of leafy avenues and dark stone houses, but now each building there meant more. He could see now the way the buildings of the inner city fit together, parts of a whole, all a puzzle constructed on a massive scale.

“You don’t have to run so fast!” Aurelle called behind him, but Greave didn’t slow. He knew where the library was now, and he wasn’t going to wait even one moment more to enter it.

“How do you even know we’re going the right way?” she called over, catching up to him now.

“I memorized the map of the city,” Greave said. “They haven’t changed one stone of it since that map was built. Can you imagine the control of the city that must have taken?”

Aurelle didn’t answer, obviously too busy running. They didn’t have to run for too much longer, though, as they both reached the garden filled square that the map’s clue had shown them. Greave scanned it, taking in the towering oaks there, the open ground, and the great stone gate that stood at the far end, next to a set of wrought iron railings that were more like a cage, designed to stop anyone from entering the space beyond. It looked like a monument or a grave, but Greave knew better now.

A bald, burly man sat on a bench nearby, ostensibly reading a book, yet Greave noted the way his eyes tracked them as he and Aurelle grew closer to the iron caged space beyond the gate. There, hidden by the shadows of the trees, underneath the iron bars, Greave thought he could see a slab that might be pushed aside.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” the man on the bench called over, in a conversational tone. “Of course, once you realize that it’s just the steps to the city’s sewers…”

That would probably be enough to turn away most people. Greave turned his gaze on the man instead. His clothes looked ordinary, but Greave could see the flash of silver on his shoes, too expensive for the man he was pretending to be.

“We seek entry to the Great Library of Astare,” Greave said. “I know that the entrance is here.”

“Ah,” the man said. “That’s different. You’ve passed one test, then. There’s just the questioning to follow.”

“The questioning?” Aurelle asked, beside Greave.

The bald man nodded. “The House of Scholars doesn’t allow just anyone into its library. They must have enough learning to be worthy.” The man stretched, setting his book aside. “I am Aldrin, tester of the House of Scholars. Who seeks entrance to our library?”

“I am Prince Greave,” Greave answered. “My companion is Aurelle Hardacre.”

“And what do you seek here, Prince Greave?”

“Knowledge,” Greave said. “Of the scale sickness.”

“Ah,” Aldrin said. “Still, the questioning is traditional. Traditionally it’s three, or until I’m satisfied. And don’t try to bribe me. Folk who value money more than knowledge have no place here.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Greave said.

“And according to Vessimus, what are the three things that a man must seek?”

He asked the question as if it were nothing, yet the book was one Greave couldn’t have imagined most people having read. Thankfully, Greave had read it, and many others.

“Honor, Knowledge, and the Benefit of Humanity,” Greave answered. “Although his student Tarrin renders the last as Goodness.”

Aldrin nodded. “And if I distill sweetrock using van Mer’s process, what do I end up with?”

Greave thought for a moment, having to piece things together. He wasn’t sure that he’d heard of sweetrock until he remembered that it was a name for natrium used in one of the Seven Poems of Kerric, and van Mer’s process.

“Unless you’re lucky, you end up with a hole where your alchemical bench used to be,” Greave said. “Van Mer’s process involves initial immersion in water, and natrium explodes in water.”

“Hmm,” Aldrin said with another nod. “Finally, in the third year, how many sons did King Jurin have?”

The third year? Greave’s mind scrambled for an answer. “That’s a trick question,” he said at last. “You’re hoping that someone will say that Jurin reigned in the sixtieth year of the two kingdoms being split.”

“Am I?” Aldrin asked.

“But in his fortieth year, he went mad. He declared that the world had to begin again, and he ordered the calendar reset. His sons rebelled against him, and he killed one in the second year of the war. So by the third year, he had two left.”

Aldrin nodded. “The questioning is complete. You may not enter.”

“What?” It was what Greave was thinking, but it was Aurelle who said it, stepping past Greave. “He answered your questions. He got them right, I take it?”

Aldrin nodded. “But what you seek also matters, and so does being a member of the House. You may not enter.”

“No,” Greave said, all the air seeming to rush out of him at once. This… this wasn’t fair. Of course, a hundred philosophers sprang to mind who could tell him that the world wasn’t fair, but this… “I came here to save my sister,” he said. Tears stung his eyes. In that moment, he felt utterly broken. “I—”

“None of that matters,” Aldrin said. He held up a hand. “Step away now, or—”

“You’ll let us in,” Aurelle said, stepping closer to the man. To Greave’s shock, a knife seemed almost to spring into her hand, a slender thing that definitely wasn’t for eating, just for killing. She pressed it to the scholar’s throat, starting to move him back toward the gate.

Greave couldn’t contain his shock at that. “Aurelle? What are you doing?”

“Something I shouldn’t be doing,” she said. “Greave is a good man, trying to do a great thing. He’s traveled for days, fought monsters, to be here. He’s answered your stupid questions. Now let him—”

Bells sounded all around the city, interrupting Aurelle, making her step back from the scholar. He looked shocked, but it was hard to tell if that was because of her threat or because of the sounds of peeling chimes on every side.

People poured from buildings all around, some of them running toward the walls of the city, more of them heading toward the gates. They pushed at one another in panic, fighting as they tried to get clear.

“What is it?” Greave asked. “What’s happening?”

“The bells,” Aldrin said. “They signal attack, but that… that’s impossible!”

The stone slab within the cage moved, shoved aside more lightly than should have been possible. There were stairs beneath, carved from stone. Figures ran up the stairs from the library below. Each wore the robes of the House of Scholars, and each looked as panicked as the others in the city. Greave could understand why: the Northern Kingdom was supposed to be safe, and somewhere this far north, this far from the threat of the Southern Kingdom, should have been the safest place of all.

Aldrin turned, ignoring Greave and Aurelle as he opened the gates to the library, letting the scholars out.

“We must flee the city now,” he said to them. “We can return after the battle—if there is anything left to return to.”

His men stared back, dumbfounded, in shock.

“RUN!” Aldrin called to his men, sprinting from the place as his men followed.

Greave watched them go, stunned. Before him, the gates now stood ajar.

“Greave,” Aurelle said. She pulled at his arm. “If someone’s attacking, we have to go.”

Greave shook his head.

“You know how important this is.”

“I know,” she said. “But—”

“If you want to run, you can,” Greave said. “Maybe you should. You’ll be safer that way, but I can’t. I can’t, you understand?”

“I…” Aurelle nodded. “I understand. I… I’ll stay. Wherever you are, I’ll be.”

Greave was instantly grateful for that.

He could hear the army coming, but the answers he sought lay below. If there was a cure to be found anywhere, it would be here; the notes he’d found in the castle library all but promised it.

He knew it was death to remain behind, yet he knew to flee would mean his sister’s death.

And so with one bold step, Greave opened the gates, let himself and Aurelle inside, and slammed them behind him.

The answer lay before him. And he would find it, whatever the cost.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Devin carefully packed away the forge on the castle’s lower level, taking his time about it, not sure what else he should be doing. Above him, the sounds of the castle continued, but insulated from him by layer upon layer of stone, along, perhaps with some of Master Grey’s enchantments.

Devin studied those, tracing them with his fingers, trying to understand them. When Master Grey had told him that he would need to learn something about magic, he had assumed it would mean learning runes like this, or chanting strange chants. Instead, he’d had him forge a sword.

Now it was forged, and Devin wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go.

He set off up the steps from the forge, taking them slowly, seeing no point in hurrying now. He couldn’t go home; his father had made that much abundantly clear. Would there be a place for him around the castle? Not that long before, the answer would have been obvious. When Rodry had been alive, he was there to be generous to his friends. Even the king might have shown some kindness to the smith who had obeyed his commands. Now, without them, Devin depended on Master Grey to say whether he could stay or not.

He came out into the sunlight, glancing up at the walls and hoping that he would catch a glimpse of Lenore there. There was one reason at least that he wanted to stay more than anything, yet maybe that was a reason he should go, too. Every thought he had seemed to be of Lenore, yet she was married to Finnal now. Devin had even given the sword to him at their wedding. Of course he would be the one to end up with both Lenore and the finest weapon Devin had ever seen; he looked like everything that a prince out of legend could be. Devin… he was no more than a smith who no longer even had a place in the House of Weapons, given purpose only because Master Grey had wanted someone to work star metal.

Devin turned his eyes toward the sorcerer’s tower, thinking of the things he had read there. Perhaps he would be better off plunging back into the city, away from everything the sorcerer had in mind for him. He could find work somewhere, perhaps in a village where a smith’s skills could be put to use making horseshoes and fixing plows.

That would mean going away from all of this though, away from Lenore. Could Devin really do that?

He tried. He walked from the castle gates, heading down into the city, over the first of the bridges there, then the next. Each step felt like Devin was dragging a lead weight, though, or fighting against a chain pulling him in the other direction. He made it as far as the marketplace in the shadow of the House of Merchants before he stopped, knowing that he could not bring himself to go further.

Around him, the stalls were busy, people pushing and bumping as they strove to get the best bargains for themselves. Hawkers cried out the benefits of their wares compared to those of all the others there. Burly porters lifted crates. In one corner, a pen held sheep, men crowded round them for an auction.

Devin stood there in the middle of it, and yet he didn’t feel like a part of any of it. Yes, he could walk away, could go to some village somewhere, or even get on a boat to far off Sarras, but what good would it really do him? He had tasted what it was like to be different now, had felt the power inside him pouring into metal and shaping it. He’d even somehow thrown back the wolves that had come at them in Clearwater Deep. Swordmaster Wendros had told him that he would never be a swordsman or a knight, but maybe he had found his own niche in the world.

Devin stood in the crowd, but he knew then that he would never feel a part of it again.

Then there was Lenore, whose image still haunted Devin’s mind even as he tried to walk away. Leaving Royalsport wouldn’t just mean leaving behind the promise of a life that was something different, something more. It would mean leaving her there in the castle, alone. It would mean a lifetime thinking of her, and yet never seeing her.

His mind made up, Devin turned back toward the castle.

There was a space in the crowds of the marketplace now, perfectly circular, admitting no people. The strangeness of it caught Devin’s eye, because people packed in on every other side, barely an inch of ground not taken up by someone in the bustle of the market. Even Devin had to push and twist his way between people, yet not one person set foot in that open circle. The strangest thing was that they didn’t even seem to notice that it was there. They walked around it without even looking into it, glanced to neighbors instead, pushed others aside rather than risk walking in the space.

Devin looked into it though, and at its heart, he saw a single figure, in robes of white and gold, sitting upon what appeared to be an abandoned crate of apples. He was eating one of them, and that seemed almost as incongruous for Master Grey as the strange empty circle he was somehow maintaining for himself.

Devin pushed forward, fighting his way into that circle. As he met its edge, there was a brief moment of resistance, his thoughts trying to tell him that there was no circle, that he was imagining it all, that there were some lovely sides of mutton just over there that he should—

He took another step, and the sensation was gone. He stood over Master Grey, who sat there calmly, tossing away the half-eaten apple and looking up at him.

“What are you doing here?” Devin demanded. “You haven’t been in your tower. You weren’t there for the forging of the sword, or for the return from the battle, or any of it.”

Around them, the people continued to flow, giving no sign that they’d heard Devin raise his voice.

“I was where I needed to be,” Master Grey said. “And I am now.”

There it was, an answer and not an answer, like always. It was enough to make Devin turn for the edge of the circle again.

“You already decided not to do that,” Master Grey pointed out.

“How can you know what I’ve decided?” Devin demanded, turning back to the sorcerer.

Master Grey shrugged. “This is the spot where you decide. Had you kept walking, you would not have seen me here, and I would have been forced to find… another. As it is, you realized how important destiny is, and so you turned back.”

Devin thought of Lenore again, of her sitting there in the castle, of her sadness, of her beauty. “It wasn’t about destiny.”

“You may believe that,” Master Grey said. “I do not have that luxury.”

“What do you want?” Devin asked. “You talk in riddles, but you never say what you want out of all this.”

“I want what I have always wanted: what is best for this kingdom, and for humanity,” Master Grey said, his expression suddenly piercing. “I want you to be all that has been promised. I want what is to come to be something the world we know can survive.”

“And what’s coming?” Devin demanded.

Master Grey shook his head and sighed. “Too much.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“We don’t get answers!” Master Grey snapped back, and it was so rare to hear him raise his voice that way that Devin took a step back in shock. “Even I only get fragments of it, to piece together as best I can. We perform our parts in this, and hope that it is enough.”

Devin bit back his anger. There was no point trying to argue with the magus; it would only mean more riddles, never a real answer.

“And what’s my part in this?” he asked.

“For now,” Master Grey said, “it is to return to the castle. There will be rooms there for you for as long as I wish it.”

“And then?” Devin asked. “I’m not going back unless you tell me more.”

“You will,” Master Grey said. “For her.”

He didn’t need to say who he meant; they both knew. Devin didn’t ask how he knew what he felt about Lenore, either. It seemed that Master Grey knew plenty of things he shouldn’t.

The sorcerer stood, grasping Devin by the shoulders. “Forging the first sword has taught you the skills you need, but it is just a beginning. The Unfinished Sword…the sword of all swords…it must be found. And it must be finished. And only you are made for this task.”

He stepped away from Devin then, striding into the crowd. The bubble of space around him seemed to burst as soon as he stepped from it, people crowding in around Devin too tightly for him to follow the sorcerer. His mind was still reeling.

“What unfinished sword?” he called out over the crowd, but there was no answer.

The sorcerer was already gone.