The Price of Freedom (Heirs of the Empire #2)

27. Elric

27

ELRIC

O utside they walk fast through the dark streets of Lunatum, shoulder to shoulder, Lukas’s face well hidden under his cloak.

The streets seem busier than before. As if Lunatum is a city that has a second life at night, drunks and whores and revellers and night traders appearing to claim the streets when it grows dark. Lunatum in daylight is hardly respectable, but Lunatum at night is truly a place that seems wild and lawless.

Elric feels alive, every nerve singing. He fears nothing. He’s with Lukas. Lukas came for him, rescued him, declared his true identity in the hope it would help him win Elric back. And then after that, in Lukas’s old chamber under the luxoli house, it had been so sweet. Better than anything Elric has ever felt. He remembers the details and each one seems to rock through his body with a wild lust. If he thought he would have a chance of getting an agreement, he’d beg Lukas to take him into the nearest alleyway and fuck him to screaming with that dildo all over again.

They arrive at a busy Sparrows’ Hall and see Inga sitting at a table drinking ale. Lukas buys three more cups with the last of his coin and takes them over.

Inga looks at Lukas as he sits down opposite her, face twisted into anger, and says, “Zai’s dick, what the fuck are you doing here? You need to get out of this town. I’m not fighting the enforcers for you again.”

Lukas pushes the third cup of ale across the table to Inga. “I know. I will be gone soon. Did the enforcers hurt you?”

Inga sniffs,” Like you fucking care.”

Lukas sighs. His voice sounds heavy and serious. “I’m sorry about Little Lamb,” he says. Elric looks from Lukas to Inga. Little Lamb? What has happened to Little Lamb?

“No, you’re not,” says Inga suspiciously.

“No one who calls themself a Mortingale deserves to die on an enforcer's blade,” Lukas replies.

“Little Lamb’s dead?” says Elric.

Lukas nods.

“Zai,” Elric says softly. He doesn’t know if he can believe it. What must it have taken to take down Little Lamb? He’d fled that fight and not looked back. The news Little Lamb was killed drops through him like a stone. He remembers Little Lamb’s arms around him, dragging him out of Zhilvar pool. “I thought he was unkillable.” He stops himself and looks at Inga. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” says Inga. “You have no reason to care about Lamb. I do not welcome false sympathy.” She looks at Lukas. Face still sour.

Lukas says, “I know you told the enforcers who I was to buy your freedom.”

“They knew anyway.” Inga points at Elric. “Where was he?”

“In the luxoli house by the docks.”

Inga snorts. She picks up her fresh cup of ale and takes a drink. “What are your plans for him? I do not think the Plumians will buy him now. Perhaps we should take him back to your luxoli house. Sell him as a sly pillow slave.” She gives Elric a cruel look. “As you seem to like it so much there.”

Lukas says, “He stays with me.” The simple unquestioning way he says it makes Elric shiver with pleasure.

At that, Inga seems unsurprised. “Where’s the dog?” she says.

“She’s fine. She’s with Trysta.”

Elric inhales sharply. He feels his throat prickle with relief. “Oh thank Zai. I was afraid to ask,” he says. Marko. When there had been no sign of her with Lukas he’d thought the best he could hope for was that she was living wild on the streets somewhere.

“That fucking dog is a better fighter than Red Wolf ever was,” Inga says wistfully.

Elric wishes he knew what to say to that, but he cannot think of anything. Inga has never shown him a shred of kindness, but she has lost her brother and her lover, it’s hard not to feel sadness for her. And guilt. All that loss was because of him. Because they brought him here.

Lukas pulls the paper Trysta signed from inside his shirt. “Inga, this is an alliance agreement, signed by the Plumian envoy.” He slides it across the table. “Agreeing to work with us towards our common aims. We lost much, but we have what we came here to do.”

Inga takes the paper curiously and inspects it, “Why do you have this? I was leading this mission. Did my father entrust this part to you?”

“He told me if I returned to him with the mark of the Plumian envoy on this paper he would make me leader of the Mortingales when he passed,” Lukas says this in a level tone, but Elric knows enough to be sure this statement must land on Inga like an iron weight from the sky. Her father named her leader of the mission but entrusted the core of it to Lukas. Her rival.

The look of betrayal on Inga’s face is heartbreaking, almost as heartbreaking as the one of acceptance and resignation that replaces it. She knew, Elric thinks, she always knew Lukas was the one her father favoured. Even as she says, “You? He would not. You are a traitor.”

Lukas takes a breath. Elric reaches out under the table and puts a palm on Lukas’s knee. “No. The traitor was not me. I have learned much about that. From the Lordling.” Lukas points to Elric. “He lived in the Rose Palace. He was there five years ago. He told me something about the raid and that betrayal. The traitor was Red Wolf. He travelled to the Rose Palace often to deliver information to Chancellor Vindar and the Rose Court. He delivered news of the raid.” Elric glances at Lukas. He knows Lukas is trying to protect him. But he has to bite his tongue not to contradict Lukas’s story by revealing his part in it.

If Elric interrupted and told Inga the truth, would she slit his throat right here? She has claimed to want to kill him many times. And she has no reason now to want him kept alive.

“Red Wolf?” Inga sneers at Lukas. “By all the sidu, Silverhand, you would smear your own lover? How typical of you. I suppose it does not matter to you now he is dead and your bed is being warmed by this pretty slut.” She points at Elric. “How convenient for you to reveal the traitor is someone who cannot defend themselves.”

“It’s true Inga,” says Elric, leaning across the table. “I was a concubine in the Rose Palace. I was given to men often as part of the hospitality of the Rose Court. I lay with Red Wolf when he came to see Vindar.”

Inga just shakes her head, but she seems more resigned than disbelieving.

“But,” says Lukas, “Red Wolf was simply an envoy of the real traitor. He simply brought the information. Abul was behind it. Red Wolf was working for Abul. Your father was using Red Wolf to send secrets to the Rose Palace. Abul was always a traitor. Always. When he joined the Mortingales he wasn’t an Imperial soldier deserting his post to fight for justice. He had been sent to infiltrate us. The raid on the Rose Palace was planned. It was always meant to fail. I believe the Rose Court encouraged Abul to do it so that they would have an excuse for the purge of the Mortingale Hills.”

Inga picks up her cup again. Her hand shakes as she takes a drink. It looks like she drinks the entirety of what is left in the cup. Elric pushes his untouched cup of ale towards her. Inga takes it, wordless, and drinks most of that too. Her voice sounds rough when she says, “Silverhand, Abul is my father. He’s the only family I have left unless you count Suriel’s red-faced babes.”

“I know,” Lukas says sadly. His tone is so heavy and knowing that Elric wonders if Lukas considered Abul a father too.

Inga shakes her head slowly. “You’re saying my father knew the raid was going to fail? Are you truly suggesting he sent his eldest son to die on an Imperial sword?”

“I think he wanted rid of Jon and saw a way to do it, yes?”

“And Finn, Juniper, Golt.” She pauses. “And you? He wanted rid of you all?”

Lukas nods. “He must have.”

“And he knew about the purge that would follow?”

“That I cannot know for sure. But after the Rose Palace raid, I think he had second thoughts about what he had done. I think Red Wolf persuaded him to turn his back on Vindar and the Rose Court and the purge was bloodier because of it. I think he’s changed. I think that’s why he agreed when Red Wolf begged him to send a party to rescue me from the gaol in Lunatum. That is why he has favoured me so since I returned. He feels guilty, Because he always knew I was taking the blame for his betrayal.”

Inga finishes the ale in Elric’s cup and says, “This is just more of your shit, Silverhand. Why should I care to listen to anything you want to tell me?”

Lukas taps the agreement between the Plumians and the Mortingales on the table. “You don’t have to. But I am asking you to take this paper back to Abul and ask him why he entrusted it to me.”

Inga looks surprised. “You want me to take this to my father? Why would you give this to me?”

“Because I’m not going back. A ship waits for me and Elric at the docks tonight. I have another path to follow. So you must take this and return to the Mortingale Hills. You must decide with your father what to do. And you must satisfy yourself he is no longer loyal to the Rose Court.”

“Me?” Inga says weakly.

“It has to be you. There is no one else.”

Inga looks serious. “You believe he has given up his alliance with them?” she says. She looks into Lukas’s eyes. She does believe him.

“I do. But you must be sure. He will have correspondence with Vindar. Make him show you all of it.”

“I loved him,” Inga says, her voice sounding heavy. There are tears behind it. “I loved Red Wolf. You know I did.”

Elric realises he cannot let Inga think that Red Wolf told Vindar about the raid. Not Red Wolf, who had been trying so hard to make amends for what he had done. No matter if she does draw her sword and take Elric’s head for it. He says, “Red Wolf was part of it, but he changed his mind. He didn’t tell Vindar about the raid.”

Inga narrows her eyes. “Red Wolf didn’t tell the Rose Court about the raid? Then how did they know about it?”

“Me,” says Elric, not daring to look at Lukas. “I had read the papers about it amongst his belongings. I read them while he slept. They had Abul’s seal on them. The same as the seal on the paper you hold. That's how we know Abul was the one sending secrets to Vindar using Red Wolf.”

But Inga doesn’t do as Elric feared she might and attack him. She’s too overwhelmed. All she says is, “That’s resourceful for a whore.”

There’s a long pause. Sparrows’ Hall is noisy, but the silence around their table feels like its own little bubble of shared understanding. Eventually, Inga says, “You know, Abul always told me you were no traitor. I was sure you must be. We argued about it often. When I asked him why the one person with the Darek name was the only one who escaped alive from that doomed mission, he said it must have been the will of the Gods. He thought Alios and Gaari wanted you safe.” She shrugs. “But I always believed the reason you survived was nothing to do with any God. I simply thought you must still have a friend in the Rose Palace who helped you escape.”

“I did have a friend in the Rose Palace who helped me escape,” Lukas says.

Inga sighs. “Abul always did talk nonsense, especially when it came to you.”

“He didn’t let you go on that raid,” Lukas says. “He knew it would fail. That’s why he didn’t let you go.”

Inga takes a slow breath. She taps the paper on the table, “You trust me with this?”

Lukas nods.

Elric looks at him. And realises he does not lie.

As they walk towards the docks, Elric presses close to Lukas and says, “I’ve been thinking?”

“If it's about things you want me to do to you with my cock, Lordling, I am sorry to tell you I am far too distracted right now.”

Elric’s voice is light, jangling in the dark. “I doubt that is true, but actually, it was about something else.”

“Really?”

“It’s about what Inga said about Abul thinking you survived the raid on the Rose Palace because the Gods willed it. He must have thought that because he never expected you to survive. He expected you to die like the rest of them. I think it seems certain that everyone Abul sent on the Rose Palace raid was chosen carefully. Either people he wanted rid of or someone he considered disposable. Preserving Inga, ridding himself of Jon and Frin, sacrificing Golt and Juniper, but what were you? Why did Abul send you to the Rose Palace for that raid?”

“I was the one who knew the route into the palace,” Lukas says.

“He could have insisted you tell them the route and stay behind. He could have planned it many ways. And he planned it in a way that meant you were there.”

There’s a long pause. Eventually, Lukas says, “Abul sent me to the Rose Palace. I wanted to go, but so did Inga. And he never stopped me. I would have died there if Damon hadn’t saved me. But I cannot think of any reason he would have wanted rid of me. And I am sure I was too important to the Mortingales to sacrifice.”

Elric says, “I’ve been wondering if sending you was part of the arrangement with Vindar. If you were meant to die in the Rose Palace. But not because of what Abul wanted. I wonder if that was an order from the Rose Court.”

“Why would the Rose Court care enough to see me dead? I’m nothing to them. A bastard. A runaway. I’d been gone years by the time of that raid.”

They turn into a dark side street. This close to the docks, Elric can feel the wind, blowing in from the Mortingale Sea. He says, “Lukas, your brother Damon was made to take a stead punishment and fight in the Imperial Army for twenty years. People say the Rose Court insisted it was him. When he survived that, he returned only to face destruction at the hands of that same Rose Court. And the Rose Court is controlled by Vindar. I’ve heard it said that this all happened because Vindar wanted rid of Damon. The Bastard Prince who might challenge the throne. What if Vindar wanted rid of you too? You are also a Bastard Prince. If Vindar targeted Damon, perhaps he also targeted you. So he ensured you were part of that raid, that was little more than a death trap. I think Abul was told to make sure you were part of it.”

Lukas stops and turns to look at Elric in the dark. The lights from the braziers that line the dockside are licking into the street where they stand. Lukas says, “You think Vindar tried to kill both of us?”

Elric nods. “And perhaps Kerik too. He vanished just after that raid. And he was commended to Zai by Doroth Zain a little more than a moon before I left.”

“Why would Vindar be eradicating Rafus’s bastards?”

“Because now Endrew is dead, and I wonder if he had something to do with that too. Vindar’s son Umbert is next in the royal line after Atticul. Officially. But before Damon fell there was a rumour that Selim was going to name him Warden of Vasti. Who’s to say if he wouldn’t have given him the dukedom too.”

Lukas makes a whistling noise. “He would have named a bastard the Duke of Vasti?”

“Yes. And that would have made Damon even more of a contender for the royal line. You remember the issues when Kerik’s mother tried to claim him Duke of Fanost? Umbert’s claim is through your sister Ferra. Damon’s would be through the male line. Atticul is still unwed. I wonder if Vindar is making sure that there are no claims from Rafus’s bastards that could be considered before that of his own son if Atticul has no issue.”

Slowly Lukas says, “I was almost killed, Damon was almost killed. Kerik is gone. If Damon truly is aboard this ship, I think we should try and find a way to get word to Tobi. Wherever he is. Perhaps Vindar will be looking for him.”

“Do you think it could be something to do with the sword? Ur-Durik? The five fae princes?”

Lukas looks at Elric blankly. “I don’t know,” he says. “Perhaps Damon does.”