Chapter XXVIII
XXVIII
By the sword
By the knife
Take a life
Take a land.
By our flame
By our fire
Take a crown
Take the Hand.
—AN INVER NURSERY RHYME
A fight to the death? A duel?” Fia asked Beneson in disbelief. “Are we animals now? Or barbarians? I thought even the Invers were beyond this sort of absurd posturing.”
“It hasn’t happened in a long while,” Beneson said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
He’d come to Fia in the queen’s rooms, where she insisted on keeping up residence.
Though she’d tried to see Ariana twice, the guards under Gaius wouldn’t allow Fia to set foot in the dungeons, and staying in Ari’s rooms was her only way of feeling close to the queen.
It reassured her, to be in a place where Ariana had passed seven years, successfully warding off the Invers’ more violent impulses.
Fia, it seemed, hadn’t been able to do the same for more than a few days.
“It’s an old rite,” Beneson went on. “And considered very honorable for an Inver to undertake. What I mean is, if you survive the rite of conquest, you win a great deal of respect. They talk about you for ages. Janus Inver was the last one to carry out the rite. A cousin was trying to usurp his father’s lands, and he killed her in hand-to-hand combat.
That was twenty years ago, and they still speak highly of him for it. ”
“Janus Inver?” Fia asked incredulously. “That bald man, with the enormous handkerchiefs?”
“The very same,” Beneson said.
“Raea’s light, I hate it here.” Fia sat down on the queen’s bed emphatically. “Janus seems like such a harmless little man.”
“No one’s harmless at this court,” Beneson warned. “They’re either dangerous or dead. Even you and I have to be a threat to manage.”
Fia pressed a hand to her forehead. “So the Priest has to fight Lucian? He can’t talk his way out of it, or refuse, or just… have someone poison Lucian before it happens?”
Beneson shook his head. “Not if he wants to be backed by Hadrian. Hadrian’s traditional. He thinks this is the way problems ought to be solved—face-to-face, and with a blade.”
“I don’t like it.” Fia was on her feet again, nervous energy coursing through her as she paced the queen’s room like a caged beast. “If it could be Gaius even, I’d feel better about the Priest’s chances.
But Lucian’s easy on his feet. Knows how to carry himself.
And I expect he’s spent years now thinking over how he’d bleed the Priest to death if the opportunity arose. ”
Beneson frowned, staring out at the vast sweep of the foothills and the plains that lay beyond the queen’s windows.
“The thing is,” he said slowly, “it could be Gaius. If the Priest had someone he trusted enough to name as adjutor. That’s sort of a brother in arms—someone who’d stand with him for the rite of conquest and face his mortal enemy alongside him.
If he had an adjutor, Lucian would have to choose one too.
He’d pick Gaius for certain, who’d stand against the Priest, while the Priest’s adjutor stood against Lucian.
It’s supposed to be a test of your ability to command loyalty, being able to name someone who’ll take on your worst enemy on your behalf.
Only trouble is, the Priest doesn’t have anyone like that.
I know you can do a lot of things, but I don’t think a knife fight’s really in your line, is it? ”
“No,” Fia said. “But it’s time for our new captain of the guard to make his first appearance at court. Ben, when is the rite supposed to take place?”
“A little over an hour from now.”
“We haven’t got long, then. I need you to go to the faithful district. As fast as you can run. Ask at the taberna for a man called Nikolau—say Fia needs him at the castle, and she needs him now. Don’t leave without him, do you understand?”
Beneson nodded fervently. “I’m already gone.”
And he was. The boy tore out of Ariana’s rooms as if it would be his own life on the line in an hour.
For her part, Fia gathered up Justus and tucked him into a cloth sling she’d begun wearing—the boy was growing heavier, and inconvenient to shift from one arm to the other.
As she settled him in, he looked up at her with his wide night-blue eyes, and for the first time, Justus’s face crinkled into a delighted, toothless grin.
Catching her breath, Fia raised both baby and sling to press kisses to the small boy’s face.
“You’re worth the trouble now,” she murmured to Orden Inver’s son. “You’d best stay worth the trouble once you grow into your throne.”
Fia found the Priest in the audience hall, where the rite of conquest would take place. It was the same room where Ariana had bled onto the floor, what felt like a lifetime ago. The Priest was alone there, seated on the edge of the dais that held Orden and Ariana’s vacant thrones.
“You look half-dead already,” Fia said on her way across the hall to him. “Have you slept more than two hours together since Orden died?”
“I made a stupid mistake,” the Priest said as Fia sat beside him.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I pushed Lucian too hard and left him no other way out.
We’re both going to pay for that—I don’t doubt he’ll live, but I’ll sell my life dear.
He won’t make it out of this unscathed. Neither of us want what’s coming, but there’s no way around it, now I’ve brought Hadrian to the castle.
He loves a fight and thinks this is the right way to settle a succession. ”
Fia took the Priest’s hand in her own, twining her fingers through his. “You’re not going to die. I pushed you into this, and I refuse to have your death on my conscience.”
“You understand that it wasn’t actually Orden who killed most of our family and my father’s councilors?
” the Priest said. “Orden took care of our father himself, and sacrificed one of our sisters, but Lucian did the rest of his dirty work for him. The witchsmoke that blinded me was Lucian’s doing—I’d sidestepped a dozen assassination attempts by then, and Orden wasn’t creative enough to come up with something like that. ”
A sudden thought struck Fia. “Did Orden ask Lucian to help him? Or did Lucian begin it himself? Was it Orden’s choice to take the throne, or did Lucian push him into it?”
“Neither,” the Priest said with a shrug, his posture going suddenly tense.
“My brother had spoken of claiming the throne since we were small. Our father’s favorite, Carian, was cruel.
If he’d become king, we’d all have suffered a great deal more.
I believe Orden considered it a kindness to his family, rising to the throne and dispatching most of us efficiently along the way. ”
“It seems to me that everyone on this cursed mountain is trapped by expectations,” Fia said.
“Orden couldn’t escape the idea that he must murder his way to the throne.
We’ve been at war with Vesper for two centuries because it’s what’s always been done.
And now you and Lucian are bound by this rite of conquest. None of you are truly free. ”
“Do you consider yourself free?”
Fia thought that over. “No. But when you’re regent and Justus is king and Ariana is safe, I will be. And I will walk out of this castle without a backward glance.”
“Given that I’m about to take my life into my own hands,” the Priest said with a humorless smile, “the least you could do is paint a picture of a future I want to live in.”
A small knot of eager courtiers filed into the audience hall at that point, casting surreptitious glances at Fia and the Priest. With a roll of her eyes, Fia left the dais and went to stand against the wall, respectful space left around her as more courtiers arrived and she glowered at any newcomers.
Justus began to make small, discontented noises, and she paced with him, five steps forward, five steps back.
Anxiety unfurled within her as time wore on and the audience hall filled.
There was a crowd now, four or five people deep, lining the walls and leaving the center of the hall empty in anticipation of what was to come.
The Priest sat, silent and entirely self-contained, on the edge of the dais.
But he looked tired. He looked defeated already.
The terrible vision Fia had been granted before leaving the cloister hung before her, and she gritted her teeth.
No. She had rejected that dream out of hand and worked against it ever since.
Orden was dead, in opposition to what she’d seen, and Ariana and the Priest would live. She would accept no other future.
Fia kept up her furious pacing, as much for herself as for Justus.
There was still no sign of Beneson and Nikolau.
If she was honest, she’d have told the Priest she hoped for their arrival—that she’d planned a reprieve for him.
But it would be difficult for Beneson to manage the errand in time, and Lucian would certainly refuse any request to delay the rite, knowing that the introduction of an adjutor would only put him at a disadvantage.
No point in getting the Priest’s hopes up.
Better he be prepared within himself for the worst, than weakened by thinking help might come.
At last, Lucian stalked in with Gaius and Hadrian in his wake. If the Priest was quiet and self-contained, Lucian was a snake coiled to strike. He radiated suppressed energy and stood aside as Hadrian climbed the dais.
“In the absence of a king,” Hadrian said, clearly enjoying the opportunity to speak from a position of authority without suffering any of its risks or responsibilities, “I’m here to announce a rite of conquest, this one regarding charges of treason.
Both the Priest and spymaster have leveled accusations against each other.
The survivor of this rite will be cleared of all charges, and their rival deemed guilty posthumously. ”
Hadrian paused for a moment, raking the gathered crowd with his sharp gaze.