CHAPTER 18 #3
“Colart Jenicor is an exemplary Sun Margrave,” I said. “Although he wields great power, he doesn’t use it for personal gain. He cannot be bribed, coerced, or intimidated. None of the Eight Families can sway him. He serves Rellas itself and he has never wavered in that service.”
As far as attorneys general went, Colart Jenicor was above reproach.
“King Sauven knows he is losing his grip, and he also knows that if he pushes things too far, Colart will be there to pull him back from the cliff. The Sun Margrave has been there from the very beginning of Sauven’s reign. Sauven relies on his counsel. It is of great comfort to him.”
I leaned on the table.
“You asked why Sauven puts Hreban in charge. Because after the entire city becomes paralyzed with fear from the constant killings, the Dog Market Butcher will murder the Sun Margrave in front of the whole court and then vanish into thin air. Colart Jenicor will be the sixth victim.”
Reynald’s face iced over.
“The next day Hreban and his guards will stumble on the killer’s hideout and cut off his head. Ulmar Hreban will become known as the savior of Kair Toren.”
“Aspects preserve us,” Shana swore.
“With the Sun Margrave dead, there is nobody to steady Sauven. Before he can fully come to terms with that murder, Crown Prince Kiel is assassinated during the Winter Hunt.”
I might as well have thrown a grenade on the table. They stared at me, shell-shocked.
“When his son is also murdered, Sauven spins out of control. His paranoia blinds him. He sees plots and conspiracies everywhere. He makes Hreban the next Sun Margrave, because he sees him as an outsider and therefore free of corruption. He gives him the power to kill or detain anyone who gets in the way.”
The room had gone completely silent.
“There is more.” I had saved the worst for last.
“What more can there be?” Clover demanded.
“The Sun Margrave is supposed to die at the conclusion of the High Court’s session, on the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Sauven’s victory over Ralinbor of the Wilds.
He will be escorted to that ceremony by three squires of note, one from each of the knight orders.
The Defenders, the Conquerors, and the Redeemers will each contribute a squire. ”
The knight orders constantly competed for power and prestige. Escorting the Sun Margrave delivered a lot of prestige. It was a public chance to flex.
Reynald was looking at me, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
I had to keep going. “When the killer attacks, the Sun Margrave will order the squires to save themselves and get help. Only the Defender squire obeys. He abandons the margrave and runs, forever shaming the Order of the Defender.”
“What about the other two squires?” Shana asked.
“The Conqueror squire is hit on the head and collapses. He is later ridiculed for not landing a single blow on the killer, is sent away from the capital, and is killed in a border skirmish.”
I looked at Reynald. He was sitting very still.
“The third squire, the one from the Order of the Redeemer, fights to his last breath to defend the margrave and dies trying to save him.”
The words didn’t want to come out of me. I had to squeeze them out.
“It’s Matheo, Reynald. The third squire is Matheo. The Dog Market Butcher will kill your son.”
The silence in the kitchen was so deafening, it hurt.
Reynald opened his mouth. His voice was calm and cold. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid that you would storm off and try to break in to the Redeemer Tower. You had no reason to trust me. I didn’t want you to fail and die.
And I wouldn’t have wanted you to succeed either.
Everything is connected, Reynald. If you managed to kill Silveren somehow, there is no telling what it would do. ”
He was looking directly at me, and his gaze was difficult to hold. It took all my willpower to stare back.
“You should’ve told me.”
“I was going to. I thought I had time.” I pointed at the board. “This isn’t supposed to be happening yet. The Butcher’s first victim isn’t supposed to show up until the first of Harvest Month. That’s more than four months from now.”
“What could’ve caused him to start now?” Reynald asked.
“Us. We caused this.”
“How?”
“The Butcher kills prominent knights from all three holy orders. They flood the city with their people trying to find him. At the height of his rampage, the City Guard triples the patrols. Everyone is looking for him, and yet he comes and goes like a ghost, and then Hreban just coincidentally finds him in some remote warehouse, where Hreban has no business being.”
Reynald’s gaze darkened. He saw where I was going.
“Hreban has eight guards with him. Way too many for a daytime trip to the docks and more than enough people to arrest the Butcher, and yet the Butcher ends up conveniently dead. And then Hreban profits from his death, first by being hailed as the savior, and then by becoming the Sun Margrave.”
Reynald leaned forward. “The Butcher belongs to Hreban.”
“I have no proof, but it is the only deduction that makes sense. It is too convenient otherwise.” I shook my hands.
“This is what I mean when I say everything is connected. We sicced the Justice Chamber on the Yolentas’ warehouse where they found the smuggled iron.
Hreban could’ve reacted in a dozen different ways.
The most logical one would be to leave Kair Toren.
Then if Indora Yolenta implicated him in the iron scheme, the Justice Department would have to go to his domain and question him there on his terms.”
“It would take a direct order from Sauven to pry him free and drag him back to the capital,” Reynald said. “And Sauven wouldn’t issue an order against the head of a Great Family without indisputable proof.”
“Exactly. Instead of taking that safe and smart route, Hreban must have told the Butcher to start ahead of schedule. If Kair Toren is gripped by panic over the horrible murders, the Justice Chamber will shift their focus to finding the killer. It takes the attention off Hreban. He can remain in the capital, and once he kills the Butcher, nobody will care about the iron.”
I couldn’t tell if I was making sense to him or not.
“The killer started early,” Kaiden said.
I almost jumped. He was so quiet, I had forgotten he was there. “Yes.”
“So the Sun Margrave won’t get killed at the end of the Court thing,” Kaiden said.
“Matheo might not be there,” Will finished.
“That means the kid won’t die, doesn’t it?” Lute asked.
I shook my head. “I looked at the calendar. Do you know what happens in five weeks?”
“The opening of the High Court Session,” Reynald said.
I had no idea how he had pulled that out of his brain on demand. I’d had to look it up.
“Yes. The annual ceremony when the Sun Margrave walks up the King’s Way to the Eagle Roost castle and hand-delivers the docket to Sauven in front of the entire capital. Colart will be escorted by three squires. The same three squires that will escort him at the end of the session . . .”
Reynald swore.
“Do you remember how I said that messing with the future is like throwing rocks into a pond?” I asked.
“That is still accurate but not in the way I thought. When you throw a rock into a pond, it makes ripples and then these ripples smooth out and it’s like the rock was never there.
The future is resisting us. It’s trying to stick to the existing pattern.
Instead of being murdered at the closing of the High Court, the Sun Margrave will die at the opening.
Nothing changes, Matheo still dies, and Hreban still rises to his reign of terror. ”
I dropped into the chair.
On my left, Clover turned paler. A hint of fear shivered in her eyes.
Gort looked troubled. Shana wrinkled her brows, her mouth a thin line.
Will frowned, thinking. Lute looked like he’d been sucker punched, and even Kaiden at the end of the table seemed lost, as if he had suddenly fallen into a deep hole and didn’t know how to climb out.
I felt so hollow. All this time I’d been so worried about doing too much and ending up with a future I couldn’t predict. I should’ve been worried about not doing enough. The timeline was fighting me, and it was winning.
I had given these people hope. They’d worked so hard, and in the end, it had been for nothing. The future continued to steamroll forward.
“I just can’t stop this train,” I murmured.
Will gave me a puzzled look. I must’ve said the English word for train. There was no Rellasian equivalent.
Would anything we did matter? Would the mercenaries we saved die somehow in other ways? Should I just send the kids out of the city? But where? Where could I put them that the war wouldn’t touch . . .
“It doesn’t matter,” Reynald said.
“What?”
His voice was calm and measured. “The timeline has moved up, but it doesn’t matter. You’ve given us a five-week lead. I’ve taken castles in five weeks.”
A change had come over Reynald. The way he sat with his back straight, the set of his jaw, the look in his green eyes, everything communicated assurance and power.
The man from the basement was back, and he wasn’t just confident, he was unassailable, like a rock in the middle of a raging sea.
This must’ve been why people followed him into the slaughter.
“As of now, nothing has happened,” Reynald said. “Yes, we’ve just lost several months, but Matheo still lives. The Sun Margrave still lives. All we have to do is find the Butcher and remove him from the picture, and we have a five-week head start.”
“We’ll find that fucker in five weeks,” Gort said.
“Someone knows him,” Will said.
“Yes, the city isn’t that big,” Lute added.
The demon from the basement leaned toward me slightly. “The future can resist all it wants. In the end, it will surrender. I have no intentions of losing this war.”
He was right. We hadn’t lost the war. Both the Sun Margrave and Matheo were still breathing. We still had a chance.