Her gasp snapped his good eye open. Anger rather than fear flashed through it, then the right corner of his mouth tugged back in a smile. “Princess. I am honored. Forgive me for not getting up.”
Alexia shook her head and crouched down, setting the lantern at the edge of the straw. “They beat you?”
“They were provoked.”
She frowned. “You went with them peacefully. You wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
He snorted, and his smile stretched the split lip. “Your confidence in me is gratifying. I am afraid I did provoke them.”
“How?”
He raised his hands. “They’d looped the chain high enough that I couldn’t lie down.” His right eye sparkled as he separated his hands, then, quickly, slammed his wrists together. The manacles hit hard with a muffled clang, then the right one sprang open. “A manacle is only as good as the spring that keeps the catch shut. I unwound a bunch of the chain from around the rafter. After that I helped myself to some of the provisions down here. They have some passable wine in that cask over there, and there is some good cheese in that wooden box.”
Alexia smiled in spite of herself. “So, I shouldn’t have been worried about you at all?”
He winced as he shifted more fully onto his left hip. “Not concerning my hunger. As it was, they decided I had some sort of key in my clothes, so they took them. Then they decided I needed a lesson.”
“I’ll make sure they get you some clothes. I’m freezing myself down here, and I’ve got a quilted gambeson on under this mail.” She rubbed her gloved hands over her arms. “You won’t have to endure the cold tonight.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been in far colder climes and survived, but your kindness is appreciated, Highness.”
“Crow, you should call me Alyx.”
“Highness, we have been through this before.”
“Times are different, Crow. Before you didn’t want any familiarity because you said our causes would someday force us apart. You didn’t want to be a liability. I didn’t know what you were talking about then, but now that I do, it doesn’t matter.”
Crow snapped the manacle back around his right wrist. “Highness, I wasn’t thinking about who I had been when I said that. And I must apologize for misleading you. I would have gladly shared with you all I knew of your father. I didn’t know him long or well, but I respected him. That I could not act to save his life is the single greatest regret of my life.”
“Crow, I said none of that mattered.” Alexia sank forward onto her knees and pressed her palms to her thighs. “Yes, I do want to hear from you about my father, but we have a more pressing problem. Mably’s intention is to take you to Meredo, where you will be executed.”
Crow nodded slowly, then rested his head against the corner. “He’s taken pains to let me know my fate. In great detail, in fact. I gather he’s hoping to ride one of the horses they use to tear me apart.”
“Crow, I’m not going to let that happen.”
“Princess, there is nothing you can do to stop it. We are in Oriosa. Scrainwood has hated me for a very long time, and he has cause to do so. I knew, coming back here, that I risked my life. The simple fact of it was, though, I had to. I had to get Will to safety, return Ryhope, and get whatever it was the Draconis Baron wanted gone from the fortress away.”
The scrabbling of a rat in the straw caught her attention for a moment, then she looked back at him. “You’re wrong that I can’t do anything to save you.”
“Highness, I have no doubt you could save me.” He laughed lightly. “You could toss me over your shoulder as if I were some lace-laden damsel in a bard’s song and cut your way out of here, but then what? It’s not that you can’t save me, it is that you should not. Remember, you’re here to convince the crowned heads to commit to fighting Chytrine. Allying yourself with me will not help you.
“Scrainwood hates me because I know he’s a coward. Twenty-five years ago I told the crowned heads that they were cowards. I told them Chytrine had vowed to return. For them to follow the plans of anyone associated with me will make people question their leadership and judgment.”
“If they were that foolish or cowardly, it should be called into question.”
He shook his head. “I won’t debate that point. You have to remember that if you are going to lead forces to oppose Chytrine, you need forces to lead. If you make rulers choose between you and the appearance of competence, what choice do you think they will make?”
“That doesn’t hold for all of them, Crow. Queen Carus of Jerana is fairly new to her throne. She’s not bound by her father’s judgment. What’s been done to you is an injustice.”
“Yes, but an injustice that has endured for over two decades. The men who beat me weren’t even born when I was stripped of my mask, but they believe every single thing they’ve been taught about me since they were children. Even if you and King Augustus and Queen Carus stand up and say it was a mistake, they won’t believe you.
“But, Highness, you are right. Queen Carus can claim she was deceived about me. You have to take a lesson from her and claim that, too. You have to walk away from me. You have to claim that I fooled you, and you have to be angry about it. Don’t let my efforts here be wasted. You’ll gain by renouncing me, and your gain will be Chytrine’s discomfort.”
Alexia shook her head so adamantly that her thick blonde braid lashed past her shoulder and almost whipped his cheek. “No, I’m not going to do that. I’ve thought about this. A lot. You’re a friend. You saved my life. I care about you, and I don’t abandon people who matter.”
“Princess, I won’t drag you down with me.”
“You won’t drag me down. As you said before, I am strong enough to carry you, Crow.” She stood and looked down at him. “I have a plan. It will save your life, and it is frightfully simple. I’m going to marry you.”
Crow knelt there, his mouth open, then slowly began to chuckle. His shoulders shifted, then he sagged back into the corner. “Oh, very good, Princess. Cruel to joke with me like that, but very good.”
“It’s not a joke, Crow.”
His head came up, his right eye a crescent slit full of fear. “It had better be a joke.”
“No. It works perfectly. I marry you and you become my Prince Consort. This raises you to such a level of nobility that Scrainwood cannot carry out a summary execution. You will get another trial, since a trial in absentia is not recognized as binding in any treaty between Okrannel and Oriosa. Moreover, you were tried on charges of treason, and since you will become a citizen of Okrannel when we marry, the charges will no longer apply. The best they could do would be espionage and that would fail because you would have to be tried before your peers, and no royal would want that sort of precedent set. Scrainwood could demand personal satisfaction for any insult you gave him, but we both know he won’t do that.”
“Forgive me, Highness, but are you insane? Your plan might be clever, but it is wasted. You will burn a lot of political capital and for no good reason.”
“I hardly think you are ‘no good reason.’ ”
“Highness, listen to me, please.” Crow’s hands curled into pale fists. “Your loyalty to me . . . I can’t tell you what that means, but it is misplaced. You have to make sure Will can oppose Chytrine. You have to see that Kerrigan fulfills his potential. You have to raise an army to destroy Chytrine. You can’t let yourself be distracted by my fate.”
Alexia stepped toward him and crouched again, her shadow spilling across his scarred flesh. “What I see clearly is that your fate is tied up with mine, Will’s, Kerrigan’s, Vorquellyn, and Chytrine. If I let you die, I’m letting the world die.” She reached out and stroked her right hand over the left side of his face, keeping her thumb from touching his black eye. “I’m not letting either die. We’ll get a priest in here and have him marry us this afternoon.”
“No.” Crow shook his head. “Even if we did marry, no one would believe it. It would be assumed to be a trick, which it wou
ld be.”
“They would have to believe it. We would have witnesses.”
“They would say they lied.”
She snorted. “They would not dare say I lied.”
“They would, just not to your face. Before you they would say that I tricked you into it. No, Highness, abandon this plan.”
“Crow, it will save your life.”
“And ruin yours.” He reached up and took her hand in his. “Princess.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Alexia, promise me you won’t do this. I won’t agree, so the effort will be wasted. Don’t. Please.”
She squeezed his fingers. “You will resist, won’t you?”
He nodded.
“Then I will have to find another plan.” She stood slowly, then leaned over and picked up the lantern again. “I am not letting you die.”
Crow’s right eye sparkled. Was that a tear forming in the corner? “Just worry about the world, Highness. The world you can save. Nothing else matters.”
CHAPTER 5
W ill awoke muzzy-headed. It wasn’t that he’d drunk too much the night before but that he’d stayed up much too late, and Resolute’s dawn rising had left him perilously short of sleep. While he had managed to burrow back into the blankets and tried to use them to shut out the light, his efforts failed. He dozed and awoke a half-dozen times before surrendering, slipping from bed and getting dressed.
Despite being half-asleep, he did pull on his mask, tying it into place before he left the room. Prior to the previous night, he’d seen that mask as silly. As a thief he’d always known the value of wearing a mask, but that was to preserve anonymity. An Oriosan mask did just the opposite, proclaiming all manner of details about the person behind it. It struck him as not a little ironic that the customary tool of a thief here allowed him to scout out potential targets by interpreting mask decorations that indicated prosperity or nobility.
And while he’d worn his mask since Yslin, he’d been wearing it to humor those backing the army. But the previous night in the common room, he’d watched how common folk were treating him. They were reading the mask and believing what it proclaimed. They knew it had been given to him by the king, and that he was the Norrington. To them, it didn’t matter that he’d been a thief. The simple fact was that he had been given a mask that elevated him, and it made all the difference.
Part of him wanted to dismiss the mask as nonsense, but he didn’t. First—and it pained him to admit it—was the fact that the people really were looking to him as their hope against Chytrine. Their faith surprised him, for in the den of thieves where he grew up, having faith in someone was the first step to being betrayed. Had he wanted to wring money from those who believed in him, he could have had whatever they possessed in a heartbeat.
He didn’t want their money, however. He wanted their good wishes and hopes. He had a mission—saving Crow—and his mask told those in Tolsin that he was to be trusted. It gave him a legitimacy he never would have had otherwise, and he was determined to use that power to save his friend.
And while it surprised him that he was employing so valuable a tool for someone else’s benefit, he also acknowledged that the world was no longer as it had been just six months earlier.
Will wandered down the stairs and through the inn’s common room. He nodded in response to the innkeeper’s greeting, then headed out into the town. The coming winter had left a chill in the air, but the sun’s caress warmed him. The sun had long since climbed above the Bokagul Mountains to the south, and somewhere between that and Tolsin lay the city of Valsina, the home of the Norrington family. His father’s wife controlled the estates, holding it for her children—allegedly his half brothers. Bosleigh Norrington had acknowledged the two boys as his, but dark rumors suggested he had not sired them.
Tolsin itself wasn’t very impressive, though it was large enough to support two inns and a third tavern, as well as a smith and several carpenters and woodwrights. It had a market square in the heart of town, with farmers and traveling merchants selling their wares.
As Will wandered, eyeing the Thistledown Tavern for any signs of easy ingress, he recognized some folks from the inn’s common room the night before. He exchanged a kind word or a wave, and noticed they warmed to his attention. Six months previous he would have been calculating how much he could take them for, but now he found himself thinking about how his failure would mean doom for them all.
“Good morning, my lord.” The voice remained soft, despite a certain keenness of tone. Sephi slipped her hand through the crook of his right arm and smiled at him. “I need to speak to you.”
Will kept his expression impassive as he looked at her. She’d pulled her black hair back into a thick braid, and her hazel eyes shone from within the depths of a dark brown mask. It had an orphan’s notch cut at the bottom of the left eyehole, indicating her father was dead. Will wondered for a moment if Distalus, the man she had been traveling with in Alcida, had been her father. No question that he’s dead.
Sephi pressed her lips into a flat line when he failed to greet her immediately. “Please, Lord Norrington. I know you think I have done you a grievous wrong.”
You betrayed Crow! He wanted to shove her away. He might have done just that, save for two things. The first was that, since she had been a spy in the employ of the Oriosan government, she might be of use. To save Crow I will use anyone and anything at hand, and not regret a moment of it.
The other was that hint of pleading in her voice. She wanted him to understand why she had done what she did, and that meant she could give him information—trading it for forgiveness. Information he desperately wanted, so he answered her with a nod.
“Yes, Sephi, if that is your name, what you did hurt me.” He drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. His voice remained even, but his tone was cold. “Crow saved your life and you turned him over to enemies who will kill him.”
Her shoulders slumped. “That is how it seems, I know. And, yes, I am Sephi. Please, my lord, I would have you know why I acted as I did.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But it matters to me. You are the Norrington, and I’ve hurt you.”
Will stopped and turned to face her, placing his left hand over hers. He let a little warmth filter into his voice, promising a healing of the rift. “I’m sure you did what you did because you thought it was right.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly.” She nodded solemnly, then lowered her voice. “I feel I can confide in you, my lord, because we have seen each other naked.”
A small jolt ripped through Will. Back during the summer Crow, Resolute, and he had run into Sephi in Alcida. They’d rescued her from a band of gibberkin. Her companions had been slain and she had been hurt. While they had traveled together for a number of days, he’d never seen the tall, slender girl naked. Will was certain he’d have remembered that.
Then it struck him. When we met, she had no mask! For her to be without a mask was to be as vulnerable as he might have felt without clothes. And Crow had his mask stripped from him! Will couldn’t even begin to imagine how much that must have hurt his friend.
He nodded slowly to the girl and began his manipulation. “Yes, Sephi, you can trust me. Since being made aware of who I am, well, considerations wear on me, but I know how important trust is. And, I will admit, I did feel betrayed by you.”
“But, Will, I mean, Lord Norrington, I didn’t . . . that wasn’t my intent.” She sighed heavily. “My lord, you have to understand, I grew up here in Oriosa. I grew up with tales of the Traitor, and Oriosans felt his betrayal more keenly than others. The Norrington Prophecy, the one that predicted your coming, had previously been taken to refer to your grandfather, and then to your father. When Lord Norrington went out to fight Chytrine, there was much rejoicing, and when he failed and went over to serve the Aurolani Empress, we knew despair. Worse yet, he had been betrayed by Hawkins, the coward. And then, to expunge the evil of your grandfather murdering Queen Lanivette, your father headed
north to do what that proud band of heroes failed to do.
“You know well what happened. Your father, brave though he was, fell prey to the blandishments of Chytrine.” She lowered her voice again and led him down into an alley between the town’s main stable and carpentry shop. “Distalus said that your father had tried to get Chytrine to free those who had become her sullanciri. She tricked him, and his father talked him into joining her.”
Will shivered. He’d met his father. He was now a twisted creature serving Chytrine as herald or ambassador. From stories it was obvious that his father had not been well when he went north, and whatever Chytrine had done to him had not healed him.
Sephi continued. “You know the tale of Nefrai-kesh killing Queen Lanivette—I was there when Distalus told it to you. He didn’t tell the whole thing, though. When the sullanciri grabbed her, he held her head in his hands before he twisted it off. He told her how Chytrine hated the Traitor, and that Oriosa was going to be the first nation she destroyed, since it was Hawkins’ home. He told her that Hawkins was still alive, and that while he lived, Oriosa would always be in jeopardy. Then he killed her by twisting her head off.”
Will frowned. “How did Distalus know this?”
“Because the king was there, my lord. Prince Scrainwood was there, beating on the sullanciri, trying to get him to free the queen. He could not, and Nefrai-kesh placed the queen’s severed head in the prince’s hands, then promised to come back for him. He said he would come back if Hawkins was not dead.
“This is why, my lord, when the king ascended to the throne, Hawkins was tried in absentia and sentenced to death. Chytrine took that as a sign, and that is why Oriosa was spared, even temporarily. King Scrainwood then sent agents out, agents like me, to scourge the Southlands to find Hawkins—and to find you. He wanted you safe, so you could destroy Chytrine and save our nation.”
“He wanted me found? He already had the Norringtons in Valsina.”