“Eidon has delivered us with a stiff wind of impeccable timing, alert and courageous guards stationed on the fortress walls, and the much appreciated action of the vessels our Chesedhan friends have so graciously supplied us.” He gave a nod to Leyton and Madeleine as he said this last. Then, as was his custom, he asked Eidon to bless the food and the remainder of the day’s proceedings, and sat down. Everyone else followed suit, and the servants at last bustled into action.
As one of them reached past his left shoulder to set down a goblet of wine, he pulled his napkin into his lap and glanced at Maddie, happy to have her sitting on his right side where she couldn’t see his scars. And then he wondered at himself, since, of all people, Maddie must certainly have grown accustomed to them by now.
“Well,” he said conversationally, “this has been quite a day.”
Though she flashed a smile at him and agreed it had, he saw that something was amiss. She looked nervous, almost guilty, her gaze meeting his for only half a heartbeat before darting back to the crowd again. And when a servant reached past her to set her wine goblet on the table, she picked it up at once and sipped.
A horrible thought struck him. She isn’t caught up in this new awe of me, too, is she? He couldn’t believe she would be intimidated by what Eidon had done. And yet, hadn’t Simon mentioned earlier that she’d been among those who had fainted during the coronation? He frowned and was on the verge of asking her about it when a plate of ruffled leaf lettuce dressed with oil and vinegar was set before him. The interruption gave him just enough time to realize her fainting would not be a good topic of conversation.
He stole a glance at her and decided it wasn’t awe that was affecting her. Just sitting here he felt the radiation of her discomfort. Granted, he knew she detested this sort of thing, and it had to be an added burden that she was serving as stand-in for her sister, Briellen, his bride-to-be. But this was more than that. Perhaps she and Leyton had had another argument.
He thought to put her at ease with conversation, but everything he could think to talk about he did not want to discuss in front of Leyton. Thus he settled for making bland commentary on the coronation soloist: Madeleine had written the words to the song, after all. Unfortunately, he could hardly recall it, having been distracted by everything else that had been going on, and his words made her no less tense.
Finally he gave up and turned his attention to Prince Leyton, sitting on her far side. “You and your ships have arrived just in time, sir. Already we are in your debt, and the treaty barely signed.”
Leyton accepted his thanks with a nod and a half smile. “Truly sir, it was not our ships, but the wind you conjured to drive off that mist. A brilliant ploy, if I may say so. All of it. You have effectively allayed all doubts regarding your right to the crown. Though your foreknowledge surprises me. How did you know the Esurhites would be attacking?”
Abramm let his surprise show. “I can assure you, Prince Leyton, had I known they meant to attack Graymeer’s, I’d not have left it standing there with a quarter of its usual manpower. That the wind came when it did was solely Eidon’s doing.”
Leyton smiled in that ironic way of his and cocked his head. “At just about the same time you were receiving the regalia, I understand. Which makes for a remarkable coincidence, I’d say.” His eyes flicked away to the table as he picked up his wine goblet and lifted it as if in toast. “Almost makes one believe there might be something to those tales that say your regalia have special powers.”
Abramm grew suddenly wary. Beyond the treaty negotiations, he had paid little attention to Leyton Donavan in the three days since he’d arrived, preoccupied with his own troubles. He did know his courtiers widely held that Donavan had come here to steal Kiriath’s regalia. Long believing the artifacts possessed supernatural powers that could be harnessed and used by their bearer, the Chesedhans had, over the centuries, repeatedly sought to take them for their own. If that was truly Leyton’s ambition, today’s manifestations could only have intensified his desire.
“The scepter, they say, can command the winds, after all,” Leyton remarked.
“And yet in all our six hundred years of history, it has never done so.”
“There are legends that indicate Avramm used the regalia against the Shadow. And Alaric did, as well.”
“Your legends. Not ours.” Abramm glanced down at his plate to spear another forkful of lettuce. “There’s nothing in our historical records to support any of those wild claims.”
“Perhaps your histories have been altered.”
“Perhaps your legends have been concocted, exaggerations based on a kernel of truth.”
“Rather like your own tale of having faced a morwhol.”
Abramm lowered his fork with its uneaten mouthful back to his plate and turned to his Chesedhan guest, regarding him steadily for a long moment. Madeleine sat motionless between them, her gaze fixed upon her salad. Abramm was trying hard not to admit he disliked this man—he was about to marry his sister, after all, a decision the Chesedhan banners he’d seen in that Light-given vision had confirmed. But Leyton reminded him far too much of Gillard: the condescension in his tone, the half-lidded manner he had of looking at a man, the way he always seemed to be playing some mental game.
Unable to decide if Leyton truly believed he had made up the tale of the morwhol or was just trying to bait him, Abramm decided to let it go and kept to the subject at hand. “Your people have long held our regalia to be more than they are, I fear,” he said quietly.
Leyton’s bushy blond brows shot up. “How can you even say that, sir? When everything that’s happened today has only proven you have no idea what you have. Did any of you expect the regalia to manifest as they did? You didn’t even know what your crown really was, hidden beneath the gold and jewels your ancestors laid over top of it! How can you accuse us of making your artifacts more than they are when you obviously have no idea what they are to begin with?”
Abramm’s irritation spiked, fueled as much by Leyton’s audacity as from the humbling recognition that he was right. Abramm had had no idea the orb was a purveyor of kelistars, hadn’t known the true crown was the simple plaiting he now wore—hadn’t known that all of it would produce a grand vision he still did not know how to interpret. That he’d seen the Esurhites heading into Graymeer’s just about the time they’d actually done it still astonished him. And at the same time did not help him understand the rest of what he’d seen, since save for the stream of galleys leaving what looked like the Gull Islands, none clearly unfolded in present time. He wondered again if Maddie had participated in any of it, if she might be able to help him figure it out, and then—suddenly and stunningly—he considered whether she might have told Leyton what she’d seen.
Something in Abramm’s expression must’ve communicated his displeasure, for Leyton looked suddenly chagrined. “Your pardon, sir,” he murmured, the intensity leaking out of his manner. “I fear I have been overbold.”
“Indeed,” Abramm agreed. He thought of asking the man flat out if he’d come to steal the regalia—just to get his reaction—then decided there’d be no point in deliberately provoking him.
“I get excited when I think about the possibilities,” the prince said.
“Perhaps, then, you would do well not to think in that vein,” Abramm advised. “Whatever they are meant to do or be, they belong to Kiriath, not Chesedh, to be used by Eidon to confirm the man he chooses as king. Which he has done.”
For a moment the amused light in Leyton’s eye flickered out, replaced by a flat expression impossible to read. Irritation? A grudging respect where none had been before? Or a cool calculation that was not at all friendly?
Abruptly Leyton’s half smile returned. “Well, Your Majesty, there’s certainly no question he’s demonstrated your place here.” And, bushy brows lifting in concert with his arm, he raised his goblet in toast, then took a second, longer draught from the vessel.
Abramm turned his attention to
his food as Leyton did likewise, utensils clinking against the fine porcelain. He hadn’t accused the Chesedhan of coveting outright, but he thought Leyton had gotten the message. Abramm truly hoped this treaty wasn’t a sham. Kiriath sorely needed the Chesedhans’ help. And if Chesedh was truly facing Belthre’gar and his armies, as rumors indicated, King Hadrich would be insane to make an enemy of his neighbor to the west.
Abramm grew aware of Maddie beside him, pushing the lettuce about on her plate but eating none of it. Did she know what Leyton was up to? Was that the reason for this uncharacteristic skittishness? She had come to Kiriath determined to protect her country’s interests, after all, and it had to be obvious stealing Kiriath’s regalia would not be in those best interests. But if she considered Leyton’s plans a bad idea, he thought she’d more likely be formulating plans to stop him, not sitting here quivering and pale.
He exchanged a few more benign words with her but, with Leyton listening closely at her shoulder, got no further than he had before. Deciding he’d spent enough time with his difficult guests, he rewarded himself by turning his attention to his newest duke, expressing the pleasure he’d taken earlier in watching the elder Meridon’s reaction to seeing his son made a nobleman. Swordmaster Meridon and his wife were in attendance at this banquet right now, as were Trap’s four sisters and their husbands, all recovered from the shock that had turned them into wax statues during the elevation ceremony. “I suppose now they’ll be wanting to visit you in your manor out at Northille,” Abramm remarked. “At least you’ll have plenty of room to escape them if need be.”
“And with this new job you’ve given me,” Trap added wryly, “plenty of things to give me excuse. Maybe it won’t be so bad after all.”
Abramm grinned at him. “There’ll be others, too,” he teased. “You’ll be amazed at the relatives you suddenly discover you have.”
Trap glanced at him sourly. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Abramm’s grin widened.
It was not until the main course of roast bullock and golden potatoes was served that Leyton was finally drawn into a conversation with Simon seated at his far right and Abramm had a chance to speak to Maddie unmonitored. Leaning toward her, he murmured, “Are you feeling poorly tonight, my lady?”
She flinched but did not look at him. “I’m fine, sir.”
“Because you’re not eating. And you seem . . . tense.”
She stared at her plate as she moved the meat about with increasing agitation. A furious flush stained her cheeks. “You know how much I detest these courtly doings.”
Aye, he knew. But he also knew he had never seen her this cowed. Was Leyton’s influence over her this powerful? Unlikely as it seemed, he really had little idea what their relationship was like. Beyond the fact it didn’t appear to be amicable.
And already—a pox on it!—Leyton had noted their conversation and was turning from Simon to interject, “Detests them? Now, there’s an understatement!” His eyes met Abramm’s over her bowed head. “She should’ve been born a milkmaid, not a king’s daughter.” He chuckled at his witticism, seeming unaware—or not caring—that he was the only one to do so.
Abramm expected Maddie to parry with a sharp retort, even heard her take a breath to do so. But in the end she only sat mute and red-faced, rapidly tumbling a piece of meat about on her plate.
Well, whatever is going on with you, my lady, he thought at her, by now thoroughly perplexed, I see I’ll not find out now. This evening, perhaps during the fireworks or the ball, he would seek her out apart from her nosy brother and get the truth.
Maddie cut a tiny piece off one of the already-cut morsels of beef on her plate and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly and swallowing. Then she glanced at him, offered a quick smile. “See? I’m fine.” But she couldn’t hold his gaze for long and soon returned to studying her plate.
They proceeded through the meal’s various courses, and eventually an innocent question from Abramm spurred Leyton into a recitation of his hunting experiences. Maddie had warned earlier against bringing this subject up, but Abramm had forgotten. And paid the price. What he didn’t expect was the way Leyton suddenly related his own experiences to Abramm’s recent encounter with the morwhol. Incredibly, he truly did seem to believe it had actually been a bear and that Abramm was allowing the exaggerated tale to circulate unrefuted for the sake of winning his people’s support.
“Bruin are fearsome enough predators in their own right, as I well know,” Donavan said. “Myself, I think I might rather face a morwhol than the big boar that just about nailed me up in the Laagernath five years ago.”
And now, Prince, another big bore is about to nail me, right here in my very own banquet hall. . . .
“Grizzle-backed, head large as wine keg, paws like dinner plates . . .”
He waxed enthusiastically in the telling of his tale, as beside him, Madeleine loosed a quiet sigh of resignation. It wasn’t a bad story—save for wondering how much of it was true—until, incredibly, the man had the gall to suggest that had Abramm used the techniques just described he’d have escaped the grievous injuries he had sustained in his own battle.
Leyton’s eyes darted briefly to the scars on Abramm’s face as he said this, and it took the king a moment to recover his poise enough to speak. “I’ll have to remember that the next time I find myself facing a bruin of that size, sir.”
Between them, Madeleine was cutting another thin slice of meat, her expression grim, teeth clenched.
“I think you will find it most helpful,” Leyton said smoothly. He paused to finish up his last bite of beef, then embarked on a new and even more tactless subject. “I understand you were quite the swordsman before your accident, sir.”
Maddie’s fork twisted from her fingers and fell to her plate with a loud clank as she looked round at her brother in apparent astonishment—Abramm couldn’t see her face, only the tension in her shoulders.
As always, Leyton seemed unaware of the clumsiness of his conversation and the offense it had given. “A pity,” he continued, shaking his head sadly. “I was hoping to cross blades with you sometime. When a man reaches a certain level of expertise, as I’m sure you know, it becomes difficult to find an opponent who can give you any kind of a contest at all.”
Abramm shrugged. “Well, I haven’t given it up entirely. I’m sure a match could be arranged.”
“Oh no, sir. I wouldn’t want to—” Leyton broke off.
You wouldn’t want to embarrass me? “I practice daily, sir. It would be no problem. Besides, how could I let such a challenge pass unmet?”
“Well, then . . . excellent! Perhaps I can even be of help in your rehabilitation. Whenever you wish to set it up, I’ll be happy to oblige.”
Between them, Maddie loosed another sigh and picked up her fork.
They were just finishing dessert when Ethan Laramor led a cadre of armsmen into the room—those in the lead carrying sturdy trestles, the six bringing up the rear bearing a platform with a large, lumpy burden covered with a linen sheet. Once the trestles were set up and the platform slid onto them, Abramm stood and the room fell into silence.
He turned to the small group of border lords clustered at the front of the table farthest to his left, lamenting anew that more of their fellows weren’t in attendance. With the passes still closed, he’d known most would be unable to leave the highlands for his coronation, but in the end he’d traded the need to get it done before the Esurhites attacked against the need to bind the border lords to him. Now he half wished he’d waited. It would have been good if more of them could experience the coming revelation personally.
“It has come to my attention,” he announced, “that when the workmen removed the Hasmal’uk stone from the Coronation Chair to transport it back to the vault after the ceremony, they found it had undergone a transformation.” He returned his gaze to the border lord. “Lord Ethan?”
Laramor tugged the sheeting aside to reveal the familiar lozenge-
shaped stone lying like a fattened hog on the platform. It had been cracked down the middle, the two sides gaping about a hand’s width apart at the top. A thin shell of darkened rock, which appeared to have once encased it, was broken now into shards as if it had been popped right off the inner surface. An inner surface comprised of pure gold.
As those nearest leaped to their feet with cries of astonishment, Abramm stared at it with amazement of his own. Though Laramor had already informed him of the stone’s change, it was another thing entirely to actually see it.
One of the border lords called out from his place at the closer end of the leftward-most table. “Sire, may we have leave to examine it?”
“You may, sir. But keep it orderly.” Abramm glanced at Captain Channon, whom he’d already instructed regarding his guests’ viewing of the stone.
As Channon sprang to see to it, Trap turned to Abramm with a cocked brow. “You’re turning granite to gold now?”
“The Light did it,” Abramm replied with a grimace. “Maybe when it drove the rhu’ema away. I only know that I had nothing to do with it.”
But he could feel Prince Leyton’s eyes upon him and knew this revelation would not help convince the man the regalia were not the talismans of mystical powers Chesedhan legend made them out to be.
Now Simon leaned around the crown prince and said, with some excitement, “Melt it down for sovereigns, sir. Think of the supplies it’ll buy. And the armsmen it’ll support.”
Abramm saw at once that he was right, a chill of wonder crawling over him.
“It seems Eidon favors you yet again,” Leyton said quietly. But Abramm liked neither the tone of his voice nor the look in his eye.
INTERLUDE
FIRST
FURY WRITHED WITHIN the man’s body—more, truly, than human flesh should be able to stand. Hazmul made no effort to curb it. What, in his unveiled form, would have manifested in lurid, blinding explosions and searing heat, was forced to channel itself through the body he had taken on. Muscles contracted to rigidity, then exploded in violent motion; tooth ground upon tooth; the heart drummed frenetically against the chest cavity, forcing blood and adrenaline through dangerously distended arteries and veins. In the delicate capillaries of the brain, a tiny vessel swelled on the verge of rupture. . . .