CHAPTER 43
The Eagle Roost crowned the apex of Castle Hill like a battle helm, its ancient walls and towers growing from bedrock.
Just to the side of the castle, a small stone spire jutted, barely wide enough to support a single slender tower connected to the main hill by an eighty-yard stone bridge.
Seven stories tall, the tower was the highest building in the city, and I stood on the observation deck at its very top.
The weather had decided to comply with the celebration, and the day was glorious, all blue sky, golden sunshine, and plump white clouds hanging low above us.
From my vantage point, the Eagle Roost’s vast courtyard was a square bordered by a wall, with the main castle rising on the right and the gatehouse offering entrance on the left.
On the other side of the gatehouse, the King’s Way, a wide, paved street guarded by a two-story wall, rolled down the hill into the city.
Today, crowds lined the sides of the King’s Way, held back by ropes decorated with narrow black and purple ribbons.
The royal guards, wearing purple cloaks and armed with spears, protected the ropes.
The sun reflected from their pale gray breastplates, and their full-face helmets made them look like menacing living armor.
The Sun Margrave would arrive by carriage at the bottom of the King’s Way, then walk about a third of a mile up to the castle with his escort.
He would pass through the Eagle Roost gates, cross the four hundred yards of the courtyard, and finally reach the royal perron, a long outdoor staircase, flanked by two spectator galleries filled with nobles, government officials, merchants, heads of craft guilds, and other prominent citizens.
The perron led to the top landing in front of the Eagle Keep, where King Sauven and the three judges of the High Court waited.
The grand staircase had four landings besides the top one, and each landing offered two smaller galleries, eight in total, reserved for the Great Families.
The closer you were to Sauven, the higher your Family was regarded.
The right top platform was all blue and white, with a splash of pale yellow—Arvel’s squad.
The top left platform, red and gray, clearly belonged to Bors.
Everard’s black and green was all the way down, the lowest platform on the left, just above the spectator galleries.
My original plan was to be in one of the spectator galleries down below, possibly next to Solentine and therefore perfectly safe.
Both my cousin and my brother had nixed that plan as too dangerous, and the Sun Margrave had offered me the tower instead.
Solentine had a spyglass delivered to the house, so I wouldn’t be tempted to sneak into the courtyard, and I was putting it to good use scanning the crowd.
I’d scrutinized the galleries three times now, and Silveren was nowhere in sight.
Everard was there, though. The last time I’d leveled my spyglass at him, he’d turned and looked directly at me as if he’d sensed me looking.
I did not have a good feeling about this.
I missed my run-around-at-night outfit. Today I was dressed like a lady again.
At least my dress had a knife pocket in it.
Solentine had offered me one of his daggers, but I’d brought the knife Everard had given me.
It was familiar and comfortable, and its weight was reassuring.
I still had Digi’s amulet as well. Just in case.
War horns sounded, sending a low, menacing note into the sky. I pivoted left with my spyglass.
A carriage rolled through the square, pulled by a pair of beautiful black horses. The crowd cheered.
The Sun Margrave exited the carriage, stern and foreboding in his armor and formal black tabard. A herald in matching black armor stepped forward, carrying the banner of the High Court, the sun in golden splendor on a black background, waving from the top of a very sharp spear.
The Sun Margrave raised his arm to greet the crowd, then took his place behind the herald.
Three squires in the armor of their respective Orders stepped up as his honor guard.
The Defender squire in blue and white took the position on the Marshal’s right, the Conqueror squire in red and gray on his left, and the Redeemer squire in sage and brown behind him.
I focused on the Redeemer squire. Matheo. As expected.
The horn sounded again.
The herald started up the slope, and the Sun Margrave and his escort followed.
Very slowly. Very stately. If a turtle was ascending the King’s Way next to them, it would have won this race.
They had a third of a mile to go, and the Sun Margrave was an older man wearing about thirty pounds of armor.
He couldn’t be too out of breath by the end of it either. That would have been unseemly.
According to Solentine and my brother, if they were Cai, they would dress up as one of the royal guards, stab Jenicor, and use a morr bead to bug out.
Logic said the assassination would happen closer to the top.
The whole point of a public killing was to let everyone on the platforms see it in gory detail.
The procession crawled up the slope. The crowds cheered.
Of course, Cai could also hit the Sun Margrave now and use the resulting chaos to teleport away.
“Maggie,” Lute said behind me.
I almost jumped. The Magnar brothers insisted on sticking to me like glue until the ceremony was over, but somehow, I had forgotten they were there. Tzeri on Lute’s shoulder gave me the evil eye.
“If you don’t relax, you’ll fall off the tower,” Lute said.
“It will be fine,” Will told me.
We were about to watch an assassination unfold, and if it succeeded, the entire kingdom would collapse. I had given everything I could to prevent this moment. Nothing about this was fine.
A third of the way up.
A half.
Two-thirds of the way up. This was going to take all fucking day. If I got any tenser, I would explode.
The Sun Margrave’s face was serene. Here I was, safe and stressing the hell out, while he was down there, walking toward his possible death, cool as a cucumber. Not a hint of worry showing.
They reached the gates. The two guards blocked their way. The herald spun his spear in an expertly executed flourish and bellowed, “The Sun Margrave seeks entry.”
By the keep, Sauven nodded. The war horn roared again, and the guards stepped aside.
This would be the perfect moment to kill him. I held my breath.
The herald, the Sun Margrave, and the three squires passed through the gates and started across the courtyard, walking between two rows of sparsely placed royal guards.
The first pair of sentries. The second. The third . . .
The tension was killing me.
The fourth pair. The fifth . . .
I rocked back and forth.
Will took me by my shoulders and very deliberately pulled me back from the rail.
The sixth. The seventh. The eighth . . .
The guard on the right dropped his spear and lunged forward, blindingly quick. Before his discarded spear had a chance to fall, he darted past the Defender squire, a slender black blade in his hand. The poor kid had no chance to react. He just gaped as Cai flew past, arm raised for the kill.
The herald moved. I didn’t see him do it, but he must have, because his spear slid into Cai’s chest.
The assassin froze, arrested in mid-step. The herald had skewered him right through his armor.
Blood drenched Cai’s armor, leaking from under his breastplate.
The Sun Margrave stopped, looking straight ahead, as if the whole thing weren’t worthy of his attention.
The herald took a step forward and thrust, putting all of his strength into it. The spear emerged from Cai’s back. The assassin dropped his blade and fell to his knees.
The herald freed the spear with a sharp tug. Blood dripped from the black standard.
Cai fell forward, face down.
The herald raised his spear, bloody standard dripping in the wind, and started forward as if nothing had happened.
I exhaled.
Rumian was truly the fastest swordsman in Rellas. If there was any doubt, this cinched it.
The platforms were deadly silent. Rellas held its collective breath, unsure what it had just witnessed.
Slowly it sank in.
Cai was dead. The Sun Margrave was alive. Matheo was alive. My brother hadn’t died.
It was over. Finally, it was all over.
An eerie roar rolled through the sky, a bloodcurdling sound of something huge and enraged.
Tzeri screamed. It was a screech of sheer panic. The small beast shoved herself at Lute, trying to crawl into his jacket.
A shadow blotted out the sun, a dark shape, growing larger, its roar getting louder until it was deafening. It plummeted down and landed in front of the Sun Margrave, between him and the perron.
A dursan.
It was huge, larger than any elephant, larger than the statue, so big my brain refused to deal with it. Nothing that big should have been able to fly. Nothing that big should have had those enormous wings studded with spikes.
The dursan roared.
I had heard a version of this roar before. That sounded like the baby beast in the Harzi kennels, the one who was crying for its mother.
The hair on the back of my neck rose. The fractured facts snapped together into a crystal-clear picture.
The boy in the cellar who fell and broke both legs.
Silveren broke his legs somehow during his service and they bother him when it rains.
The crying baby dursan in the Harzi stables.
They have something that doesn’t belong to them. I came to retrieve it.
The magic voice, the one that wrapped around you like a caress.
Ralinbor of the Wilds inherited the power of Exultant Call from his father and the affinity for the dursans from his mother.
“Ah, but I wouldn’t be the counselor.”
“Who would you be?”
“The king, of course.”