A Throne of Surprise
COLSAR
The marriage papers were filed before dawn.
He had done it himself, which was probably unnecessary and he knew it and did it anyway. The clerk had looked at him with an expression that said he had questions and understood better than to ask them. Confidential documents filed by a king regent were not documents a clerk asked about.
He walked back through the corridors in good spirits.
He was not a man given to good spirits but this morning he could not help it. Asharin had chosen him. Asharin was alive. Their children were alive. That was all that mattered.
He thought about dinner. Saurin was right, it was time for the children to begin eating table food. Soon, they would do their first family dinner together. There would be no meetings with his mother or distractions that could get them killed this time.
He wanted it to be the ordinary version of their life rather than something stolen from circumstance.
He wanted to do it every day. He could not wait for Fiorakis to be old enough to sit at the table and steal food off his plate.
He wanted Ari watching her do it and then doing it himself ten minutes later as though he had thought of it independently.
He wanted Asharin across from him.
Soon. Whatever she was doing it was almost done. He could feel it the way he felt most things that concerned her.
He turned toward the council chambers.
He had not seen Sevrin since before Asharin was poisoned.
In the beginning he had assumed he was recovering somewhere.
It had been long enough now that the assumption had started to feel less like patience and more like neglect.
He did not truly care if Sevrin was alive, he had realized.
They had never truly been close as brothers, and admittedly Colsar hated that Sevrin had been in the room with Asharin just before she was harmed.
He should have been paying closer attention.
He should have recognized the danger before it happened.
Colsar liked to think he would have, if he had been there.
That was the past, he reminded himself. He would begin handling things today. Sevrin’s affairs. The council. Whatever had been allowed to drift.
He pushed open the doors.
He read the room in under two seconds.
Uralish first. Standing near the far wall with his wrists bound, dampeners on both. Yorali work. Colsar recognized it immediately. His face was controlled but his jaw was tight. Syle beside him, same restraints, his expression that of cold fury.
Larafyn at the head of the table.
The Baron to his left, looking at Colsar with the expression of a man who had arranged something and was pleased with it.
Yvara beside the Baron. Her expression composed in a way that told him she had been rehearsing it.
And at the far end of the room, in a chair that had not been there yesterday, a man Colsar had never met and recognized immediately.
The King of Yorali looked at him.
"You have something that belongs to me," Orsin said. His voice was even. Calm. His skin was smooth and young. His eyes were cold and empty. He looked at Yvara. "Is that not right, daughter?"
Yvara smiled. Sweetly.
Although the smile was not charming, given the missing front tooth. Colsar was quite sure Asharin was responsible. The thought pleased him.
Orsin's eyes drifted over the room. "Where is the Dowager?" he asked. "Where is Tamal?" A pause. "I believe they have some questions to answer."
Another pause.
"And where is my Ivanoxa?"
No one in the room answered him.
Colsar looked at Uralish. At the dampeners. At Syle. At the room.
He kept his face arranged into nothing.
"Arabar," he said quietly.
Arabar was already at his side. Colsar did not look at him. He kept his eyes on Orsin and let his expression carry the rest of it.
Find Asharin. Now.
He felt Arabar's small nod. Then he was gone, slipping out before anyone tracked the movement.
Larafyn cleared his throat. "Your presence is timely, Prince Colsar. There are matters of treason to address."
"Treason," Colsar said.
"The asset transfer. Asharin's signature was used without authorization. The murder of Lord Mysin, for which the penalty under Veynar law is death." Larafyn held his gaze. "Among other things."
"Do not accuse him while she is dead and cannot defend herself," Syle said.
"She signed it," Larafyn said. "That is not in dispute. What is in dispute is who instructed her to."
He looked at Colsar coldly. "And Prince Colsar has never lacked audacity, is that not true, Highness?" He took a sip from his goblet. "I am sure my brother and Jessamy would agree."
"Yes, they would, if they were alive. But they're not. Traitors don't get to live long in my presence," Colsar said coldly.
Yvara's smile did not waver.
Colsar looked at her. He looked at the smile. He looked at the Baron standing beside her.
He thought about Asharin.
He thought about the table in Urasal. The laces he could not tie. The way she had kissed him before she went back through the ward.
He thought about the marriage papers filed before dawn.
"A Rathmor must hold the throne," one of the council members said. "The throne requires a feeder. Fiorakis is the obvious choice. Whatever else is disputed, that is not."
"She is an infant," Larafyn said.
"She is a Rathmor feeder heir. There is no stronger claim."
The argument continued. Colsar let it. He stood near the door and said nothing and kept his face arranged into nothing and waited.
A Morrak came through the high window.
It swept low over the table and Orsin raised one hand without looking at it and it dropped. No sound. It simply fell and lay on the floor and did not move.
The room went quiet.
Then the doors opened.
Sevrin looked at the room. He looked at Larafyn. He looked at the Baron. He looked at Yvara. His expression did not change.
He looked at the Morrak on the floor, motionless.
Then he looked at Orsin.
"You're in my seat," he said.
Orsin looked at him with the same patience he had given everything else.
Colsar closed his eyes and the window exploded inward.
The Wanderer came through it the way Wanderers came through things. All at once, its wings engulfed in flames that filled the space, its presence enormous and wrong for the size of the room. It hit the floor and one of the council members screamed and several pushed back from the table.
Orsin turned. He raised both hands.
The Wanderer hit the floor and lay still, its wings folding slowly, a sound coming out of it that Colsar had never heard from anything that size.
The room was very quiet.
Colsar felt it rise in him. The shift. The siakar pressing upward the way it did when something threatened what was his and his body decided before his mind did.
Orsin turned to him.
"I do not like dogs," he said quietly.
Colsar stopped.
The power pressing against him from across the room was not something he could push back against and he understood that immediately.
Conserve your energy, he reminded himself.
Firebirds were not the way. The Morraks were not the way. His siakar was not the way.
His eye burned copper and he held it there and did not shift and looked at the King of Yorali across the wreckage, unsure who was expected to make the next move.
“Fiorakis Rathmor,” Orsin murmured. Colsar clenched his fist. “And the boy is a dog like you, is he not?” Orsin smiled. “No need for tantrums, dog. I have no interest in your useless children.”
He sighed. “Asharin seemed displeased with the accommodations I gave her in the North Tower. She did not seem fond of yellow.” His eyes drifted. “Nor did she approve of the way I disciplined her sisters.”
Colsar struggled to remember. Yellow.
His stomach dropped.
Orsin laughed lightly. “She does not need to worry. A new tower has been built. And there is a room with a new color. A special color just for her.”
Fuck. Yellow. Now Colsar remembered. Asharin had told him. While poisoned, she had dreamed of a yellow room where Orsin discarded his daughters after he—
Orsin interrupted his thoughts. “As for your dog-blooded children, do not worry. You may keep them.” He smiled. “We can have heirs of our own, perhaps.”
Before Colsar could answer, Uralish lunged.
The dampeners did not stop him entirely. Only slowed him. He came forward with everything he had left anyway, his voice tearing through the room.
"For Ryaran—"
He hit the floor before he finished.
The room went silent. Then Enovar began to step out of Syle with a roar. Colsar used his power immediately, the air in the room going so thick that Enovar retreated back into Syle.
He could hate him later, Colsar thought to himself. But at least he would be alive.
Colsar closed his eyes, sending birds to the military quarters, though he was no longer sure how far this coup extended or who could be trusted.
He and Sevrin exchanged glances, the kind of look they had shared in the past when Threns attacked.
We are aligned, for now, is what the look said.
Orsin straightened his coat.
Then the doors opened a third time, and the look on Orsin's face was nothing short of fear.
From the corner of his eye, he heard Sevrin draw in a breath.
Colsar turned. Slowly, toward the door.
"Fuck."