“Us or them,” she replied with impatience.
“Fat slugs were a threat?”
She scowled. “You’d be surprised at the stings some vermin conceal beneath their jeweled robes.”
I said nothing more about it. It was done. No sense in reviving a stale argument, and I wouldn’t want to trigger any of her old memories. Aside from a decided tendency to kill certain men in the most painful way possible if they reminded her of the wrong sort, Sondra kept her most vicious thirst for vengeance mostly under control. We all had our festering wounds and managed them the best way we could. The escaped slaves and other victims that couldn’t wrestle their demons … Well, most of them had imploded—or exploded—early on. The ones who managed to keep going I treated like packages of vurgsten: carefully handled and pointed only at the enemy. Sondra included.
“Any sign of the former king’s bloodline?” I asked, hoping to steer her away from brooding down a dark path. We never found any descendants of the former ruling families, no matter whose realm it had once been. As much as Anure scoffed at the old ways and sneered at the superstitions of blood ties to the land, he’d been thorough in killing or imprisoning the old families. Still, I always asked, some part of me unable to believe they’d all been obliterated. Part of me childishly longing to restore rightness to the world that my adult self knew was forever lost.
“Nowhere to be found,” Sondra replied. “Conflicting rumors regarding them—some say dead, others say fled. Could be even worse than that, you know. The young princesses would have fetched a high price in the underground flesh markets, if Anure didn’t simply keep them for himself.” Sondra shrugged in a show of callousness far thicker than mine. “That trail would be years cold. Can’t save everyone,” she added.
It might as well be our credo. If I had a crest—which would be a set of broken chains like those that had choked me and killed Father—the cynical motto would fit perfectly. But I hadn’t sunk that far. Not quite yet. “That doesn’t mean we won’t try,” I said, and it came out as a growl again, not only because of my sore throat.
Sondra flashed me a surprised glance. I shook my head, dismissing her concern. Not enough sleep, that I’d spoken that aloud. But she inclined her head in agreement. “That’s why we saved the ex-imperial-governor”—she emphasized that with relish—“for you to interrogate. Though I may have softened him up for you.” She smiled, not at all nicely. I restrained a sigh, almost feeling sympathy for the bastard. Hopefully she hadn’t terrorized the man past coherent speech.
“And Ambrose?” I asked.
“Found the alchemist’s library and workroom in the tower.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder with some glee, a vicious triumph in what had once been a flirtatious gesture, sweeping her hand toward the golden tower that stood out against the sky.
“And no,” Sondra added, “before you ask. We didn’t have to kill the alchemist. To all appearances, the place has been abandoned for years. Probably dead along with all the other magic workers. Ambrose says he’ll send for you when he has information—or a new insight into the future.”
Oh joy. I only hoped it would be useful information, like the kind that would have me taking a force to kill Anure.
“Take the king through there, Bert.” Sondra pointed as we arrived at a narrow tunnel. She handed me a flask that contained the honeyed herb infusion Ambrose brewed to soothe my throat long enough to last through a speech. “Better entrance for the rabble to first glimpse their new and forever king. I’ll guard the rear.”
Bert. That was the boy’s name. I made a mental note before throwing Sondra a reproving look. “These people you call rabble will soon be your companions at arms.”
“You might change your mind once you see them,” she retorted, adding a crooked smile.
She was trying to cheer me up. Which meant I’d failed to lead. So I drank deeply of the unpleasant brew, then toasted her with it, trying to appear as if I savored this victory. She saluted me, looking relieved, so I’d been at least partially successful. I followed young Bert through the shadowed portico and into the bright sun of the open stage. Trumpets blasted, the ringing tones encouraging me to feel as majestic as they proclaimed. My officers ringed the stage at attention, all clean and neatly attired. They saluted in unison, a striking maneuver, one we’d practiced many times—though we’d never before defeated a city this size—and I acknowledged them curtly, my role in this elaborate staging.
We all know that any performance requires a costume.
The leather cloak I’d stitched together with my own hands over many nights by the campfire streamed from my shoulders. No, it’s not made from the skins of my enemies, though that’s a useful rumor. The crown weighed heavy on my brow. The crown is a deliberate inversion of tradition. Made of silver, we looted it from minor nobility who’d thrown in with Anure and thus kept their lands and wealth. Until we relieved them of their greedy gains bought with the blood of the land and people they’d been supposed to protect.
It had been one of the first estates we captured. The more minor the house, it seemed, the more elaborate the badges of office. When Sondra showed the crown to me, I’d rejected it immediately as too gaudy and uncomfortable. She insisted I had to have one—and when did I plan to find another?—so I’d conceded as the easier path. But I’d wrapped the sparkling thing in leather strips left over from the cloak, to at least help keep it on my head. Also, we’d needed the funds from the jewels more than I needed a flashy crown, so we prized those out to be sold for supplies. I’d rather liked the gaping holes left behind, as they seemed appropriately symbolic.
Kara had been the one to suggest filling the holes with polished black stones from Vurgmun. We all had our supplies of them that we’d collected—bitter souvenirs of a time best forgotten—so we’d spent an evening in someone’s looted salon, drinking their excellent contraband liquor, laughing at the fine joke as we refitted the broken crown with stones gathered by prisoners in the mines. The perfect crown for a king of convicts.
And it was nothing like my father’s crown, which had been set with the jewels of Oriel, handed down for over a thousand years, a magical totem symbolic of the king’s connection to the realm. Anure had said from the beginning that magic didn’t exist and he proved it to be true by relentlessly destroying every aspect of it, merely symbolic or not. The crown was lost—along with the realm—and rumored to have been melted down to serve as part of the emperor’s chamber throne, where he shat his final insults to those who’d resisted imperial aggression.
In the end, they were all empty symbols. Crowns and costumes. Magic, too, if it had ever been real. But I’d use whatever I must in order to win my vengeance and put the restless shades of my family and kingdom to rest at last.
At center stage, I stopped, surveying the throng crowding the extensive escarpment below. As Sondra had snidely implied, they did not impress. The people looked ragged. Too thin and too poor for denizens of this prosperous capital city. Regardless, they looked better off than we had when we escaped the mines and taken our own lives back. I’ll never forget that first glimpse in the mirror, its too-bright reflection wiped free of dust. How that soft-faced boy I’d remembered had somehow swelled into a hard-faced monster of big bones and ropy muscle, a scarred wraith of burning anger.