CHAPTER 10
Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
I’d said too much. I’d concentrated so hard on not saying anything that would immediately set him off, that I had put way too much out there. Damn it.
Too late to back out now. Even if I did make something up, he wouldn’t believe me. He was focused on me like a wolf who had spotted a lame bunny.
“Not exactly. I know a version of it.”
“Tell me.”
I didn’t want to go there.
“Tell me what’s coming. Please.”
“A civil war and everything that brings. Slaughter, atrocities, famine. A complete breakdown of society, aided by the invasion of the Crimson Empire and a plague. It begins with three powerful people being murdered one after another, and things really fall apart after the second murder, the assassination of the crown prince. King Sauven isn’t in his right mind already.
After losing his eldest son, he becomes unhinged. ”
And that was just the start of it.
“During the investigation into that assassination, the capital burns for three days. They will call it the Night of a Thousand Fires. Rellas fractures as the Eight Families revolt and start clawing at each other, trying to get to the throne and pull the Savarics off it. Then it’s tragedy after tragedy.
Nobody is spared. Even the countryside endures atrocities.
The king’s forces march to meet the rebels and come across a small town called Applegrove.
The town refuses to open its gates. The commander in charge takes Applegrove and decimates the male population.
Every tenth male, no matter their age, is put to the sword.
They spare no one, not even babies. The river by the town runs red with blood . . .”
The look in Reynald’s eyes made me stop.
“Too much?” I asked.
“Do I die before I rescue my son?”
Danger, danger . . .
“Look, it’s probably better not to know.”
“Tell me,” he growled.
“Yes.” Technically not true, but true in spirit.
Reynald closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them. “How do I die?”
“During the Night of a Thousand Fires, a woman you don’t know tries to run away from a group of pikemen chasing her.
You interfere, and they impale you. You lose the use of your legs but survive for another three months as a beggar on the streets, until a random scrounger slits your throat for the few coins you had managed to gather that day. ”
He stared at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said and meant it.
“Clover?”
“I don’t know. Some people have big parts to play, some small. I don’t know what happens to her and Kaiden.”
The blademaster sank into his chair.
The silence lay like a brick between us.
“How does it end?” he asked.
“It’s a mystery.”
The second book stopped with the civil war still raging and the invasion by the Crimson Empire going full force.
“How does Hreban fit into this?”
“I suspect he is the architect of this mess.” I had suspected it since finishing the first book. “I don’t know exactly how he brought this about, but while other Great Families are shocked and reeling, he jumps on a chance to seize authority.”
“As if he were expecting the opportunity to present itself,” Reynald said.
I nodded. “Hreban craves power. He thinks he is entitled to it. Yesterday morning I was walking through the city . . .”
I told him about the thief. Every gory detail was branded in my mind, and it spilled out of me like a geyser.
“He calls it the contemplation. He doesn’t see people as people, he sees them as tools he can use.
In his view, a faulty human tool should be discarded, but not before they fully understand the depth of their failure.
That’s why he partially cauterizes their wounds—to prolong the suffering.
He wants them to realize the errors that led to their end and have time to contemplate . . .”
The expression on Reynald’s face cut me off. It was hard, cold, and merciless, as if a different man suddenly sat in his place. A dangerous man who’d made up his mind and wouldn’t be deterred. I almost scooted back in my chair.
“Is this something he does often?”
I sighed. “Not yet, but he will. After the second assassination, Sauven grants him unchecked power.”
“To Ulmar Hreban?” Reynald’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“Yes. Hreban is the one who burns the capital, he is the one who butchers Applegrove, and after he does all that, he starts mass executions. He lines the King’s Way with prisoners in contemplation.
Fifty people per batch. They die slowly, while the city watches, and when they pass on, he brings more out.
Around-the-clock executions for a week.”
There was a demon sitting in the chair in my office, and he was contemplating murder.
“It’s not that simple,” I told him. “Right now, the only thing Hreban is guilty of is killing the thief.”
“That’s enough for me,” Reynald said.
“You and I are on the same page. Hreban perpetrated torture and murder. He should be brought to justice. But killing him now would just postpone the inevitable. People like him rise to power not because they are incredibly capable but because the situation is ripe for it. Hreban murdered that boy and dumped his body to test Kair Toren. If eliminating Hreban could solve this problem, the city would’ve roared in outrage. Instead they let him get away with it.”
Reynald’s expression turned calculating. “Rellas has become accustomed to the Great Families wielding unchecked power.”
“Yes. And the higher he rises, the less accountable he becomes. Power attracts supporters. After Hreban receives the royal mandate, he reaches out to the Order of the Redeemer. Silveren has misgivings but in the end he sees a way to elevate his order above the Defenders and the Conquerors. The Redeemers become Hreban’s enforcers. ”
“You’re telling me that a holy order willingly chooses to support Ulmar Hreban? The man despised by the entire knighthood?”
“Yes. By that point enough things happen to throw the other two knight orders off-balance. They leave Kair Toren, and Silveren jumps on that opportunity. With knights at his back, Hreban is unstoppable. Competing merchant guilds who wouldn’t do business with him enter losing deals to curry favor.
Councilors who denounced him crawl to his house bearing gifts to save themselves.
In the end, nobody can keep him in check. ”
“All the more reason to remove him now.”
“But even now, before any of this happens, Hreban is likely not alone. He must’ve made alliances and bargains. If you kill him, whoever is working with him will simply take his place and continue.”
And Reynald and the kids would still be in danger. The nightmare would still come to life.
I shook my head. “No, this will be complicated. I can’t just eliminate Hreban.
I have to dismantle him while the entire kingdom watches.
He thinks he is untouchable. I will reach out and touch him.
I know his secrets. I’ll drag all his dirty laundry out into the light for everyone to see.
It will take time, money, people . . .” And I didn’t have any of that.
He leaned forward over my desk. “I will do this with you.”
“No.”
He gave me that Reynald look, the same one he had treated me to when I announced I would sell myself to Derog.
“I’m capable—”
“Three hours after we met, you sold yourself into slavery and then died.”
Well, yes, it sounded bad when he put it that way.
“You need help. You need me to keep you alive.”
“You have done enough for Rellas,” I told him. “You served the country for twenty years. You fought and bled for the kingdom. You deserve to rescue your son and go far away from here, to live a calm, safe life. Matheo needs a living father.”
“I’m a knight,” Reynald said. Steel vibrated in his voice. “I swore an oath to defend my country. A kingdom isn’t land or cities, it is people. If what you say is true, we are on the threshold of great suffering. I will do whatever it takes to shut that door.”
“No. There will be consequences.”
“We will deal with the consequences.”
I wasn’t explaining it very well, and the danger he radiated made it harder to think.
“I’ve already meddled to save someone, and then you and I came here and killed Derog and his crew. Now an entire sequence of events won’t happen, and I don’t know what will happen in its place. I only know what was supposed to happen. I may have made things worse.”
“I doubt it,” Reynald said.
“Our actions will alter the future in unpredictable ways. What if we stop the assassination of the crown prince and King Sauven is assassinated instead? What if your son is blamed for it and dragged through the streets chained to a horse? What if you die? What if Clover dies? You won’t come back to life like I do. ”
Here is a giant sack of what ifs, deal with it.
“I have six brothers,” Clover said from the doorway.
I turned. She stood on the threshold, her face pale, her body rigid. Oh great. “How long have you been there?”
“Since I asked you if you could see the future,” Reynald said.
“And you didn’t mention it?”
“She has a right to know.”
I raised my hands. Really?
“While we are on the subject.” Reynald looked past me at the open door to my bedroom. “Come out.”
I turned in my chair.
Kaiden crawled out from under my bed on all fours.
You’ve got to be kidding me. “Kaiden! What are you doing hiding under the bed?”
“I heard you crying. I thought something bad happened.” He stared at Reynald. “How did you know I was there?”
“I heard you,” Reynald said.
“I was very quiet!”
“Quiet enough for them. Not quiet enough for me.”
Kaiden sat on the floor, his face stunned.
“You said every tenth man in Applegrove will be put to the sword,” Clover said. “I was born in Applegrove. My parents are there. My grandparents and my brothers, our whole family is there. I don’t want any of them to die.”
“You may want to convince them to move,” I told her.