37. Right on Time
Right on Time
"This is not what we planned, princess."
"We planned to enter the Thrykis palace. That is where we set the stone, Duke."
"Asharin. I am serious."
"As am I. I am more capable than you give me credit for."
"Fine." He grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a pillar. "Be capable. But tell me what the fuck the plan is."
I was not used to Eravic cursing at me.
Fine.
"Follow my lead. We get Avaneer in here. I kill Thrykis. You knock out Avaneer."
He stopped. "What?"
"You heard me."
"I heard something that sounded like the worst plan I have ever been made party to in my considerable years of surviving terrible situations."
"It will work."
"It absolutely will not—"
"Who are you?"
King Fyris sat in his throne. He was not what I had expected. Smaller. Older. Unattractive enough that I was fairly certain he had never been handsome.
I stepped forward and bowed my head.
"Your Majesty. I have come to report a serious matter. Concerning your Crown Prince."
Fyris raised an eyebrow. He said something to the guard at the door without taking his eyes off me. The guard disappeared.
We waited.
Avaneer entered with a goblet of red wine in his hand and did not look at me once. His eyes went to the king, then to Eravic, then to the middle distance, as though whatever had pulled him away from his day was already boring him.
"This woman claims you came to her in the night," Fyris said. His voice was impatient, as though his son's assault was a minor inconvenience.
Avaneer looked at the ceiling briefly. Then at Fyris. He still had not bothered to look at me.
"I have not been with a woman in years," he said flatly. "I prefer muscle and chest hair."
"She says otherwise."
"Then she is mistaken or she is lying." He took a sip of his wine. "I have never seen her before in my life and I have no interest in seeing her again. Besides, I would pick one with better taste in clothing." He motioned toward me with disgust. "Is that all?"
"Are you lying to me?" Fyris said.
"I am not lying to you. I have no idea who she is." He rolled his eyes. "Father, we have dinner with Sir Shorvan about the properties in the West in a few short hours. I need rest and more wine before I attend. Let me go."
Fyris ignored him and turned to me. His eyes moved over my face slowly. "You are Orsin's daughter, correct?" He tilted his head. "What is your name again?" A pause that was not really a pause. "Come here."
I walked toward him with my head bowed.
I stopped just before the throne.
"I forgot to mention one thing, Majesty."
"What?"
I lifted my head.
"I am King Orsin's blood," I held his eyes and let the glamour fade for just an instant so he could see the gold of my eyes. "And Ryaran Floravar's heir."
His expression shifted.
The light left my hand before he finished shifting.
It hit him the way I had been taught to make it hit, the exact way his nephew Teorin had taught me to kill a Thren when he trained me in the woods all those months ago. He slumped sideways in the throne without a sound.
Behind me I heard Avaneer's goblet hit the floor and Eravic moving fast. Another sound, then silence.
I looked at Fyris, now motionless. Then I crossed to Avaneer unconscious on the floor and crouched and pulled the sword from his waist and turned it over in my hands.
"Why Fyris?" Eravic said from behind me. He was breathing harder than usual. "Why not Avaneer?"
"Because I am certain it was Fyris's idea.
" I stood. "The bond. Avaneer walking into that dinner.
All of it came from somewhere and it was not from crown prince incapable of thinking of anything beyond himself.
" I looked at him. "Besides, his brothers will either align with him and then fight him for the throne.
Or they will align with him and they will all retaliate.
" I looked at the sword. "In any case, the retaliation will be against Orsin.
" Understanding dawned on Eravic's face.
I sighed, turning the sword in my hands. "Fyris wanted the veil open. He was willing to drain me completely for it. He sent Avaneer to make sure it happened."
I walked back toward the throne.
"And moreover." I stopped in front of Fyris. "It will be far easier to make Avaneer's life miserable if he is alive to experience it."
I plunged the sword through Thrykis's chest.
I held it there a moment longer than was strictly necessary.
"That was for you, Sevrin," I said quietly. "You are a problem, yes. But they had no right."
I pulled the sword free and walked back to Avaneer and crouched beside him and pressed the hilt into his unconscious hand and wrapped his fingers around it one by one until it looked like something he had chosen to hold.
I stood.
"Squeeze my neck," I said to Eravic.
"No."
"Eravic."
"Absolutely not."
"We have no time for this."
He looked at me. Stubborn.
"Eravic. Please."
A sigh. Then he stepped forward and put his hand around my throat and pressed. I felt the marks form. I reached up and took hold of his shirt at the collar.
Our eyes met.
I pulled. It tore cleanly.
"We must look like we struggled," I murmured.
Then I screamed.
The guards hit the door before the sound finished leaving me. They flooded in, weapons drawn, and I was already pointing at Avaneer on the floor, the bloodied sword in his hand, his eyes beginning to open with no memory in them of how any of this had come to pass.
"We were talking," I said. My voice shook in exactly the right way.
"The King told Avaneer he must take responsibility for me and Avaneer became angry.
He said he had waited long enough. He said he wanted to be king himself.
" I pressed my hand to my throat where the marks were.
"He stabbed him. And then he came for me.
" I grabbed Eravic's arm and clutched it tightly.
"He had no choice but to defend me. And look at how he was harmed.
" I brushed my fingers over Eravic's bare chest, his ripped shirt hanging off it. I felt him still immediately.
The guards stared at Avaneer. At the sword. At Fyris very dead and slumped in the throne with a wound through his chest.
Then one of them pulled a horn from his waist and raised it to his mouth and blew.
The sound tore through the palace like something alive.
"Attack. Prince Avaneer has murdered the king."
The room filled. People poured in from every entrance, guards and advisors and servants and people who had simply been nearby when the horn sounded and had no idea yet what they were running toward.
Avaneer was sitting up now, blinking, the sword still in his hand, and I watched him look at it and understand nothing about how it had gotten there and begin to understand everything about what it meant.
I bent over and picked up the goblet that had spilled on the floor before emptying its remnants onto Avaneer's head, then I bent down and whispered.
"I hope you don't mind. Your father won't be on time for dinner."
Eravic's hand closed on my arm.
I looked at him. He nodded once.
We moved.
We made it back to the ship breathless.
"Move," Eravic shouted the moment his boots hit the deck. The crew did not ask questions.
He turned to me.
His hair was disheveled. His shirt was torn, no thanks to me.
He grabbed my shoulders. "That was insane," he said.
"Yes."
"And dangerous."
"Also yes."
"And could have gotten us both killed."
"Possibly."
"And the plan changed approximately four times between the pillar and the throne room."
"Plans are living documents."
"And—" He stopped.
I took a step toward him. "And what?"
He looked at me.
"Absolutely fucking brilliant," he said, lifting me in the air before setting me down. "Not bad for a lad."
I laughed as he set me down, then grabbed his arm as I felt the deck shift beneath me. Or perhaps that was me shifting. I could not entirely tell. The tincture Elsan had given me had carried me further than I expected, and now the carrying was done and the debt was arriving all at once.
His arm caught me before I reached the conclusion of that thought.
"I have you," he said quietly. He was already moving, steering me toward the stairs, and I let him because my legs had decided to become a general suggestion rather than a guarantee.
"You will need your cabin," I said. The words felt slightly further away than I intended them. "For cross redheads."
"Mm."
Down the stairs. Through the door. The pillow was cool against my face and the sound of the water against the hull was steady and even and very much the last thing I was going to be aware of for some time.
"And buxom brunettes," I murmured.
I heard him, or thought I did. Something quiet. Something said to the room rather than to me, in the voice people used when they believed no one was listening.
Only golden haired ones.
Or perhaps I dreamed it.
When we returned, it was almost dawn. He helped me tie the laces of my leather dress before we left the ship. I said my goodbyes to Forsamin and Elsan, who warned me to continue with my treatments.
“They taste terrible,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
“Then you are not chasing it with enough bad ale,” he said with a laugh.
Eravic touched my arm. “You are exhausted. I should escort you back, I have a feeling you did not arrive with guards.”
“I would never be so irresponsible, Duke of the Blue,” I said innocently. I laughed. “I am wide awake and will be fine.” Before he could protest I walked away.